Media documentation of the September 11 attacks
During the September 11 attacks of 2001, a series of four coordinated terrorist attacks by the Islamic terrorist group al-Qaeda, killed 2,977 people, injured over 6,000, and caused at least $10 billion in infrastructure and property damage. Multiple others have died due to 9/11-related cancer and respiratory diseases in the months and years following the attacks, leading the numbers impacted to continually shift to reflect the new numbers.
Some of the victims were able to document their experiences or the experiences of others and created well known images and video to document the attacks and their trauma. The media produced during and after the attacks were used to help identify victims, for investigations into the attacks and to document the attacks for history amongst other reasons. Many media forms were used, specifically photography and videography from passerby's on the streets or surrounding areas, freelance photographers and media crews around the city. The large spread of images and video along with the lasting impact on the population caused many of the images and videos to be in the top of the list of performances given recognition in mid-2002. In broadcast journalism, the Peabody Awards went to ABC and NPR for the channels documentation of the attacks, and the Pulitzer Prizes were awarded to six events around the attacks including two in photography.
The media documentation also showcased the limitations of media communication and documentation of the incident. The limitations created an issue were many common day individuals knew more about the situation, than first responders, politicians or the victims trapped on the planes or in the buildings. As stated by a former White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer, Air Force One not having satellite or cable TV, nor access to email meant that; "It put us in a very different spot than most Americans that day. People around the world were riveted to their television sets. We had it intermittently on Air Force One....When you're in the air, you're cut off."
Photography
Many photographs were taken during and after the September 11 attacks, as photographers shot a large amount of images, although only a few were widely seen by the public. Potentially due to the sudden and catastrophic nature of the attacks there was no effort by city, state, or federal government to document the disaster, and other photographs inserted themselves into the scenes. Due to the public nature of the attack, that occurred in a busy location in broad daylight, the attack on the World Trade Center is said to be the most photographed disaster in history. The Mayor of New York City at the time, Rudy Giuliani issued an Executive Order shortly after the end of the attack, banning amateur photographs of the ruins as it was deemed a "crime scene" and not a tourist attraction.Cameras and rolls of film were recovered in the rubble, that were either lost by surviving photographers or near those that lost their lives. These rolls of film and equipment when possible were cleaned and the photos produced to showcase the photographers final work, this was done notably with the recovered cameras of Bill Biggart. Of the pictures recovered or initially uploaded to company servers, editors had to choose which to include or which would be deemed too disturbing to be published. Of polled photo editors who chose to run images classified as disturbing , none chose to run the images on the front page but felt that not running the images would be a disservice to the victims and the scale of the tragedy. One such editor stated;
Other forms of photo documentation of the disaster were not discovered until much later, such as a man's web-camera that had been set to take multiple photos and had captured the disaster.
Some of these images were incorporated into an exhibition of images called After September 11: Images from Ground Zero which showcased twenty-seven images around the world. Other exhibitions of the images were brought together in the form of archives, such as one spearheaded by photographer Joel Meyerowitz under the direction of the Museum of the City of New York to focus on the rescue and recovery work at Ground Zero.
Well known images
Videography
At the beginning of the attacks, there were only three videographers who captured the impact of the first plane when it hit in New York City; French filmmakers, a German artist, and a Czech tourist. Two security cameras captured the impact at The Pentagon and the impact of Flight 93 in Pennsylvania is only recorded as a mushroom cloud in a single video. The attacks were also captured by local law enforcement, such as Officer Glen Pettit who was a video cameraman for the New York Police Department.Jules and Gedeon Naudet, are the french filmmakers who were at the scene of the attack as they were filming a documentary on members of the Engine 7, Ladder 1 firehouse in Lower Manhattan and had followed the fire fighters on a routine call following a suspected gas leak in downtown New York. Upon hearing a plane pass overhead, Jules Naudet swung the camera to track it and filmed the collision by chance. He continued to film during the attack and evacuation, gathering some 180 hours of footage. The brothers, by their own admission made an effort to not film any of those who died while they were at the site via either fire, jumping or other traumatic injuries.
Some individuals tied to News Stations, such as photojournalist Mark LaGanga, who works for CBS News, were called up by editors and executives and told to document the event. In the case of LaGanga, it was thought to be just a small plane crash, and he did not fully understand the true nature of the attack while he documented and interviewed passing first responders, until he documented the collapse of the North Tower. Other videos of the attack were taken by individuals who did not make the footage public immediately, such as former New York University student Caroline Driers, who filmed the attack out of her 32nd floor room on Water Street and held on to the footage for almost 10 years. After releasing the footage, she stated that it took her ten years to understand why the footage was special, and that sometimes it would have been nice or easier to not have filmed it, and just to have run away.
Television channels
Due to the reactionary reporting of the attacks, many television journalists and their production teams were scrambling for information and reporting live from close locations to the attacks as possible. This allowed them to capture the real-time reactions of ordinary citizens, first responders, and political leaders as the events were unfolding, causing much of the verbal content aired to the public to be spontaneous and emotionally charged. Even later shows such as The Late Show with David Letterman showcased the stack emotional reactions to the attacks, rather than a potential narrative. Many channels devoted 24 hour-7 days a week coverage, as the magnitude of the damage was assessed, the potential for more attacks subsided, and important revelations into roles of Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida became known.Channels such as WNYN-TV Fox 5's show Good Day New York, aired footage almost immediately, and CNN had a live feed of the Twin Towers at 8:49 AM, almost three minutes after the first plane had hit. Other channels used news channel coverage in order to spread information with VH1 and MTV utilizing CBS's material, ESPN and ESPN2 utilizing ABC's material. At the end of the night, Nielsen estimated that at least 80 million Americans watched the evening news, while an estimate by the University of Georgia held that about two billion people either watched the attacks real time or through the news.
Telecommunication devices
Phones
While the phone networks were crucial during the attacks to document what was happening and gain information for either victims, family and friends or first responders, they were also battered by the attacks. Verizon's densest knot of cables and switches in the world were located near the trade center, with the attack destroying 300,000 voice access lines, and 4.5 million data circuits with 10 cellular towers made inactive. This caused 14,000 businesses and 20,000 residential customers to lose service.Cell-phones
During the September 11 attacks, cell-phone technology was still being created and limited the still image and video capabilities of the devices. However, many scholars highlight the growing trend of utilizing cell-phones allowed for the creations of spontaneous networks of communication, that were able to circumvent and undermine more of the formal hierarchical systems of communication. A majority of the material created by cell-phones is the record of voice mails. Many of the voicemail records were included by individuals documenting the disaster and in archives about the reactions of the victims and survivors. The director of the September 11 Digital Archive Tom Scheinfeldt stated in an April 2008 interview;Communication was hampered by the disaster, as the attack knocked out 300,000 voice access lines, and 4.5 million data circuits, and left 10 cellular towers inactive. This caused some 14,000 business and 20,000 residents in the areas affected to be without service. This did not stop reports of survivors in the rubble of the buildings to call officials or family members during rescue efforts with their cell-phones.