9/11 raised debate on responsible reporting

The shock and the fear that was felt by Americans after 11 September also hit home for reporters, who in rapid succession dealt with the terrorist attacks, the anthrax scare, and the murder four months later of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl in Pakistan.

Reuters/Lucas Jackson

Some of the more disturbing images on 11 September, 2001, were those of the people trapped on the upper floors of the towers as the toxic smoke forced them out the window, including the famous “falling man” photo, taken by AP photographer Richard Drew.

“The bodies of people jumping - at the very beginning, we saw a lot of footage, and then there was a blank decision to get it off the air,” says Judith Matloff, a former foreign correspondent specializing in areas of turmoil as well as an adjunct professor at Columbia Graduate School of Journalism.

The falling man photo has been absent from most of the sober media tributes for the 10th anniversary of the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center, in part because of the lessons learned the first time around.

Matloff says that the attacks opened a debate about responsible coverage of violence. “In the past, a foreign correspondent might be in Sudan. They take some photographs of people starving or people being shot.

“It’s far away and nobody’s going to see those photos. They really are a nameless people who are an example of what’s there,” says Matloff, who has covered a number of wars.

“Suddenly, people were photographing and writing about their own community. They were reporting on events, but they also had a responsibility to be sensitive,” she says.

A new set of ethical responsibilities has been put in place, says Bruce Shapiro, executive director of the Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma. “How we interview folks, how we choose whose stories go to air, or get in the paper. Which images we use on a occasion like this,” says Shapiro.

But by the time the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan broke out, journalists used a less critical eye, says Matloff.

“I think the lack of questioning of the Bush justification for getting into Afghanistan and also to Iraq created a passivity, particularly I think for people who had been affected,” she says. “It was hard to separate your personal anger from your shock.”

Michael Messing, a journalist and a frequent contributor on the media to the New York Review of Books, calls the reporting during 9/11 and afterwards “one of the greatest institutional failures in the news media”.

“The atmosphere was one of fear, suspicion, a tremendous emphasis on patriotism, on getting on board. It put pressure on journalists to conform, to go with the pack,” says Messing.

“And people who asked questions that were regarded as too uncomfortable were berated or accused of being unpatriotic, or marginalized. A lot of voices were left out of the debate.”

An uncritical eye, says Messing, contributed to the mistakes made.

“There was […] failure to cover weapons of mass destruction well, failure to realize what was going on in Iraq. And I think the press realized that they blew it,” adds Messing.

With the 10th anniversary of 9/11, there is a conscious effort to provide balance. One veteran television news reporter says that he longs for the days after 9/11 when everyone was together taking a stand together, but for the most part, media outlets are keeping coverage spare.

“People on this anniversary, for example, are trying to contend how to balance the responsibility to history to accurately portray the horror of that day with the realization that some of the images repeatedly shown will be distressing,” says Shapiro.

Time Magazine, an American news magazine, put out a special commemorative issue, called “Beyond 9/11.” On the cover, there are no towers on fire, or people running through the streets covered in white ash.

The art, by Julian Laverdiere and Paul Myoda, show the United States at night from space, with the Towers of Light beaming up. The cover has won praise from many.

“The good part of reporting on this anniversary shows that the traumatic events do not end when the debris is cleared, when the fire is put out, when the peace treaty is signed, when the bullets stop flying,” says Shapiro.

“The news from a 9/11 continues to play out in the lives of individual and families and communities for years. That is an important change in the news agenda,” he adds.