9/11 On The Air

If you missed it, last night's episode of Aircheck was incredible. It's an hour of 9/11 radio coverage from live news/talk stations in New York City. The archives are up here: Streaming Realaudio | Streaming MP3.

Hearing this coverage brings back the confusion and chaos of that day four years ago, and it also puts into perspective the current coverage of Katrina and the storm's aftermath.

You'll hear all the rumors and spreculation (some right, most wrong) as they fall off the presses and off the lips of announcers at WOR, WABC, WCBS-AM and other New York City stations. A propeller plane has hit the South Tower. The FBI announces that the attack was NOT terrorism. The left half of the south tower has collapsed.

Great editing job to Evan for this episodem and to Brian for the great Aircheck Series, and hats off to The Professor for capturing all this when it happened.

Comments

[Cynthia]

It WAS a really compelling show. Thank you!

I'm not quite sure I see how it puts Katrina coverage in perspective though...The immediate coverage of the towers falling and THAT speculation, vs the relatively well prepared coverage of a well predicted weather event, and the speculation involved in the foiled government response? Two very different animals, methinks. I've been pleasantly surprised more than once by what looks to me like honesty (!) in the coverage. They couldn't supress and spin it fast enough, perhaps.

[Krys O.]

There might be less speculation with this disaster but the media did "rollover" by not challenging the blatant lies made by administration officials in interviews.

http://www.alternet.org/story/25227/

[Station Manager Ken]

i suppose one of the reasons it puts perspective on Katrina for me is that I've been in touch with people in New Orleans, and the stories I hear from them are often at odds with even the best TV coverage going on.

-ken

[Cynthia]

I suppose you're right ... as a unit they rolled and played dead, as usual. There were glimmers though! There was one soundbite I heard, a newswoman whose name escapes me rightnow (Diane ___?) challenged Brown's statement that he didn't know about the people at the dome, saying in an incredulous tone, something like : You mean you didn't KNOW there were 20,000 people there?!!?

[Jeff Jotz]

Do you have any tapes of WFMU on that fateful day? I was always wondering what you folks were doing as all hell raged a mile away I was working a block away from the station and had the Jersey City police scanner on. The JCPD was reporting (possible) Muslims celebrating on the roofs of their apartment buildings around Journal Square and a motorist, trapped in traffic on the eastbound Pulaski Skyway, trying to lower himself to the ground with a rope.