The 20th anniversary of the 9.11 attacks is tomorrow, and many of us, I suspect, are once again watching the catastrophic footage. I’ve been watching standard samplings of coverage as it happened, and one thing stands out. The determination to steer the conversation away from the obvious was somewhere between mind-bending and surreal.
CNN commentators had been told that a commercial jet had slammed into the North Tower around 8:46 am, but even mentioning the possibility of terrorism was verboten. What were the odds that a commercial jet had plowed into the side of a building due to some kind of bizarre pilot error? It was obviously a suicide move, but what kind of demonic pilot would decide to murder hundreds of innocent victims while offing himself? And yet the news guys relentlessly pondered the possibility that the impact might have somehow been accidental.
Even after the second plane hit the South Tower at 9:03 am, three or four commentators said “this appears to be on purpose” but others bit their tongues.
The reaction of ABC’s Peter Jennings to the collapse of the South Tower is almost poignant. Raw live footage of the South Tower disintegrating had been aired plus a nearby eyewitness had told Jennings on-air that the entire building had been reduced to rubble, and Jennings’ response was “the side of the building has collapsed?” No, came the reply — the whole building. “This is the entire South Tower?” Jennings asked, refusing to believe what he’d seen and had been told by a sane-sounding person standing four blocks away.
