The new 9/11 recordings: what do you think?
Steve Safran August 16th, 2006
The release of previously private recordings from 9/11 has me wondering what Lost Remoters think. Listening to the recordings makes me queasy. And I am glad they have been released. Sanitizing the news does nobody any good. 9/11 was not about falling buildings, it was about people dying, in agony. I didn’t like how we covered the story back then and I still don’t like that we focus on buildings and planes and not people. Still, the argument goes that these recordings violate the privacy of the dead and their families; that we only want to hear their dying moments out of morbid curiosity. I always come down on the side of releasing all information, but I’m far more interested in your thoughts. So, comment below.
34 Comments Add your own
1. thedetroitchannel | August 16th, 2006 at 8:27 pm
then you should have visited fromisrealtolebanon.com and .info when i posted it a couple of weeks ago.
there was plenty of pictures of “people dying, in agony”…especially little children.
being the open minded person i am i am certain there was just as much “agony” on the other side of the border.
there’s a local publication: the arab american news (arabamericannews.com) whose print edition this week shows what no mainstream american outlet would think of printing.
npr had an interview on today with 2 iron and steel workers who aided in the recovery after 9/11. they both said something like “what we saw, god never meant anyone to see”.
2. thedetroitchannel | August 16th, 2006 at 8:49 pm
ps. god never meant anyone to see this week’s edition of the arab american news
3. Adam | August 16th, 2006 at 9:29 pm
I was unfortunate enough to see too much unedited tape from 9/11 in NYC and I can honestly say there is no way that anyone should see what was eventually left on the edit room floor. The horror of the planes smashing into the buildings was enough. I really believe there is a line, common across cultures, that needs to be observed. Stories, audio perhaps, but images that literally shock you provide nothing but penetrating, bad feelings that do little to increase your understanding. They do, however, go far in chipping away at our humanity.
4. Swift Loris | August 16th, 2006 at 10:49 pm
In most cases, you hear only the side of the conversation from the outside; the voices of the people inside the buildings have been deleted to preserve their privacy. The exceptions are conversations with firefighers, and a portion of the call from Melissa Doi, which was played at the Moussaoui trial. That one, though, is very hard to listen to.
It’s important to have those calls made public because they reveal the tragic organizational and communication problems that cost many people their lives.
It seems to me they’ve taken pretty good care to eliminate the prurient interest factor.
5. tish grier | August 17th, 2006 at 6:16 am
I was sitting at my desk working on an article when NPR aired the tapes…I was able to tune out the one of the firefighter. He was doing his job. His death is no less tragic, but it is noble in some way because he confronted the possibility of death every time he went into a serious fire…
But when I heard Melissa Doi, and the dispassionate voice of the 911 operator, I lost it. I began sobbing. Not just crying quiety–really sobbing. Not just for the horror Melissa endured, but also for the operator who had to stay on the line and could do nothing. How did that person deal with it at the time, and how does that person deal with it now? I cannot imagine….
Airing the tapes, though, to me, is in bad taste for a number of reasons. To what purpose is it to air them publicly? To get us to support the invasion of another country and leaving our troops to manage what’s turning into a civil war? Like photos, airing these audio tapes may mean to shock and disturb–and to possibly manipulate the public to keep on supporting an action that has no clear connection to the event that was supposed to have been its impetus.
6. Safran | August 17th, 2006 at 8:59 am
Tish: Thank you for sharing that. It was very personal, and I’m glad you chose to write about your experience. I don’t believe there is a political purpose to air the recordings. (And I know I’m inviting a huge backlash on that point.) And there’s not much of a ratings purpose either - after all, everyone’s airing them, so nobody “wins.” This is public information, and I stand behind sharing it. Right now, amid the ridiculous conspiracy theories on the web, it’s always good to be reminded of the real people who died that day. I lost a friend at Cantor Fitzgerald. And, frankly, I’d like to hear his voice one more time.
7. Rob | August 17th, 2006 at 1:13 pm
Censorship, whether we impose it on ourselves or it is imposed on us by the government or other entity, sometimes isn’t a bad thing. This is one of those cases. I’m all for a free media, but here we are five years later still releasing audio tapes and whatnot from an event as traumatic to the United States as Pearl Harbor and for what? What purpose does the release of new audio clips serve? What new insight do we gain into what happened? How does it help the nation better understand what happened? What was newsworthy about the release of new information other than the release of new information?
8. Steve Safran | August 17th, 2006 at 6:13 pm
Rob: I suppose the counter-argument to those perfectly good questions is this - it’s up to the people to decide what good comes out of it.
9. darren | August 20th, 2006 at 5:48 am
why is releasing these clips a bad thing. hearing
Melissa’s audio after 5 years jolted me out of apathy. Before I heard her it was just about planes and buildings. not anymore
10. darren | August 20th, 2006 at 6:07 am
what I mean is. It hasn’t fuelled any revenge motives but hearing the tapes restored my humanity. I used to worry about trivial things until hearing this
11. tish grier | August 21st, 2006 at 9:18 am
Steve: thanks for sharing your own personal thoughts on the tapes…
Actually, I’m pretty level-headded about these things–think that, on certain issues such as the war in Iraq, we have a derth of public knowledge (to our detriment). I like to throw out the idea that there’s something more behind these sorts of things, just as something of a propaganda baromenter I’ve been surprised the reactions I’ve been reading/hearing about the ‘casts.
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