September 11th, 2001
BBC London: 9:00am
Because the event has just occurred there is very little information about what has happened except for a few eyewitness accounts and a live video stream. The female news anchor repeats the small bits of information that the BBC has gathered as they stream several different views of the burning towers. There are no statistics on deaths or injuries and very little known about emergency services. At about 9:02, just as the camera zooms out, the second plane enters the frame and collides with the south tower. The reporter with whom the news anchor speaks gives an account from a nearby café on another man’s cell phone. He elaborates on the type of airplane that hit the first building, the floors that are visibly affected, and the rush of people streaming out and away from the twin towers.
WJLA(ABC) Washington DC: 9:00am
The male news anchor remarks on the number of small airports in the area, but clarifies that all local pilots are clear on where the World Trade Center twin towers are located. The female news anchor elaborates that many commercial aircraft come close to the city, but all routes are a comfortable distance from the towers. The video is a live, close-up stream of the north tower as smoke billows out. Sirens can be heard in the background as the emergency services respond to the disaster. They confirm that it was, in fact, an aircraft and it hit between 8:40 and 8:45am as thousands of people arrived at the towers for work. The anchors remind the viewers that there is an observatory and a restaurant atop the towers in which tourists may also be trapped. They are hesitant to speculate on terrorist activity. When the second plane is seen hitting the south tower at 9:02, the male news anchor seems to label it as an attack on the World Trade center. There are sounds of people gasping and crying out in the newsroom as the plane collides. They replay the clip to confirm that it was another airplane. The emotional response is clear and they use words like “horrifying” and “helpless” to describe the feelings of those watching the clip with no way of stopping the events.
September 17th, 2001
NEWSW(CBC) Ottowa, Canada: 7:10am
The newswoman finishes reporting the weather and comments on hockey games, adding that a local team is volunteering to assist the Red Cross by “passing the hat” to collect donations. She reports that three games have been rescheduled and a golf tournament will be played a year later due to the events on 9/11. A newsman asks a representative from New York to explain how the people of New York will be able to move on and go about their business as the wreckage stands and the search and rescue mission is underway. She explains that there could be 20,000 people that are still out of their homes due to the disaster and they may not be able to return for weeks. The city must first find a solution to that problem. They then move on to the loss of office space (the equivalent of ALL the office space in Toronto) and how business will go on. They report on the reactions of people who work/worked in the area, some of which said they want to show that terrorism won’t get them down and others which said that they can’t work somewhere that is such a target. The representative says that most people just want to get back to their lives and those who are most concerned are those who work in the Empire State Building, another potential target.
MSNBC New York: 7:10am
The newsmen talk about Bush’s proposed investments for the upcoming War on Terror. This is the first time a war has been mentioned in the news so far and a ticker along the bottom mentions the Taliban. The ticker also shows the confirmed dead (hundreds at that time) and missing (thousands at that time) in the WTC attacks and a poll saying that 81% Americans would prefer that the US wait until they have proof of the perpetrators before they attack. There is a lot of talk about war, who to fight, and how to protect the US and world economies. Will companies buy back their stocks, is it a good idea, how will the US stock market stay afloat? They predict more spending on information technology and reduced spending on travel and leisure in the US stock market. There are concerns about the stock exchange that day; there are potential technical problems due to destruction of lines and slowness, but the online brokerage should be unaffected. The emphasis is on the ability of America to get its business back on its feet, if not that day, then the next.
Comparison
At 9am on the day of the attacks, the Washington, DC channel (ABC) were at first calm and collected, with some shock at the events, but their main concern was getting facts on the people inside and how the rescue was going. The London channel (BBC) had a similar reaction, but they had much less information and a harder time getting play-by-play on the attacks. At 9:02am when the second plane hit the towers on the live feed, there was shock, horror, and high emotions on the American end while the London channel remained calm and factual in their report. Both channels showed a continuous live feed of the burning towers with just audio of the news anchors. The morning of the 17th, both the New York channel (MSNBC) and the Ottowa channel (CBC) are most concerned with business carrying on in New York. Surprisingly, the Canadian news station seems more concerned with the human side of life returning to normal while the American station was more concerned with economics. This contrasts with the reactions on the 11th when the foreign station remained informative and factual while the home station allowed emotions and confusion to enter the newsroom. In all cases, the focus was on the World Trade Center attacks with no mention of the Pentagon or the flight 93 crash.