2006 was (to my knowledge) the first time that you could relive the TV coverage on 9/11, as CNN streamed their coverage from five years previous in real time. That was my first semester at Bridgewater, and was quite an "in" to discussions in both Intro to Mass Comm and Mass Comm Theory & Research courses. Today, I found out (from WEEI-AM, who declined to name the specific network!) that CNBC is replaying NBC coverage from eight years ago today. I can't spend more than an hour with it--it's too hard. And I'm tuning in now, after the towers have fallen, and I am so ok with that. If you have time, reviewing the coverage is well worth the effort....
And for a palate cleaner (I need a lot of those this year, it seems), I offer the trailer for last year's documentary Man On Wire. Really nice film--and it's available to stream on Netflix. Worth a look.
And then tell your important folks that you love them.
5 comments:
Hey Boss, I too have an interesting interpretation of 9/11 all those years back now. When the Towers went down I was in my second week of Army Basic Training. We honestly thought origionally it was part of a training exersize to see how we would react to a threat on the United States but when they brought back the troops who had family in NY and they were crying it just got sureal real fast. One minute we were marching about and the next a general was addressing us in a cramped classroom about what had just happened. I remember that I still didn't believe it right away because the T.V. images they showed were computer generated models of what had transpired so I kept to the idea that this was training menuever.
We left the class room and the Ranger and Special Forces barracks were all in a buzz and they were throwing all their gear in the back of the big troop trucks and running in mass toward the air field. The sound was almost deafening as it bounced off the brick buildings. Where it really got heavy was when they told us we each were going to be given 3 minutes on the phone to talk with our folks. We didn't have any information to give them but they wanted us to tell them we were alright. My mom couldn't stay on the line and my Step father had to take the message. It was the first time in my life he and I ended our conversation saying I love you. After that they rushed basic training so we had all that we had to have done to qualify completed in the 4th week of a 9 week program. In week 9 our 1rst Sgt. told us that the vast majority of us would be going to war in the next four years and of my graduating class he was more than right. I personally shipped out almost four years from the day we graduated. Oddly enough a fella gave me flak on the one year anniversary of 9/11 when I asked him what the date was while writing a check. He actually asked me "what kind of an American didn't know the date on that day". I never saw the civilian reaction until much later and years later I saw the news coverage. Odd how a perspective makes all the difference.
I think all of our mindsets changed on 9/11/01. It's one of those events where you will always remember where you were. I remember I loved hearing all of the patriotic thoughts after that day. I wish we could have that always. I will never watch the news coverage again. I don't want to relive those thoughts. I just wish we could hold our patriotism.
Definitely agree. It was personal for all of us. And this may be me but I just hate it when it's described as an "anniversary." I don't know what the right word what be but it just seems anniversary is to remember a different event than this. It was one the worst day of my life and each moment is forever etched in my mind.
September 11th was "THAT" moment for our generation. We will always remember where we were, what we were wearing, the name of the person who passed us in the hall and told us that something crazy was going on in NYC, what teachers classroom we were sitting in and how our schools dealt with the chaos. That one day changed everything about everything. It started a war, morphed national security, crashed our economy, and impacted about a million other things. Amongst all the awful memories, I have this one positive one. In the days after 9/11 we stopped being white, black, red, green or whatever and we all became Americans. However tragic and sad those days were, they showed us all that we have the ability to look past race and class and gender and everything else and look at each other as human beings. It was morbid and beautiful at the same time and something that hasnt happened to that degree since then.
isn't that entire situation feeling like it was fake now? not to diminish what happened, but with the pace of the media and how quickly information is passed along it almost feels ancient history!
i was in high school when it played over the televisions during lunch and i will never forget where i was when i found out.
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