WUSA (CBS) September 11, 2001, 9:00 AM
The footage opens with the news station playing video of the first tower burning from several angles, and they keep showing this throughout the broadcast. They’re still not ruling out the possibility that the crash was an accident—the newscaster is asking someone who is phoning in if the area usually has small planes flying around, and the man on the phone agrees that sometimes there are planes. Other than that, the man knows nothing. They put another lady on—it’s clear now they just have regular people calling in to report what they’re seeing. These people have no real info. In the middle of the lady’s description the second plane hits; in the seconds leading up to this you could see the plane flying in the background, but the actual impact is just under the frame. There is an audible shout from someone somewhere in the news station, and the lady on the phone, shocked, reports that the second tower has been hit and declares that there was no way the strike could have been an accident. The newscaster asks why she thinks that and when the lady becomes agitated insisting the crash was deliberate, he seems to realize that he should not go down that road without more information, and asks her to report more on the situation from the ground. Then he seems uncertain whether it was the second tower that was hit or if the first was hit again, and the news station rewinds the tape and watches it from a different angle to confirm that the second tower was hit. He asks again about the condition of the towers, and the lady repeats herself. Then they show the rewound footage again to see if they can spot the plane.
WUSA (CBS) September 17, 2001, 9:00 AM
This broadcast presents a more polished and calm demeanor, immediately focusing on New York Stock Exchange in the aftermath and then the current information on the attacks in bullet points; the newscasters do refer to them as terrorist attacks and relay that President Bush identified Osama Bin Laden as the prime suspect. They report the casualties from NYC and the Pentagon, and that stores are selling out of American flags. They then switch to footage of New York from the ground, reporting on road and business conditions, mentioning again the NYSE and the effort put into preparing it for trading again. They then discuss the Reagan National Airport’s closing and the limited schedules of other airports before showing a display of patriotism from a Dallas airport.
Overall the September 17th broadcast was far more organized and informative that the September 11th one, as well as more visually varied; it showed the newscasters, bulleted slides, and different shots from New York rather than one continuous video stream. Notably, the 17th showed no footage of the towers at all. The overall tone of the 11th was one of confusion and shock while the 17th conveyed solidarity and determination to continue with daily life. While the 11th had no set narrative of pattern to the information it relayed, the information on the seventeenth followed a logical set of topics in which each subject led to the next.
NHK (Tokyo, Japan) September 11, 2001 9:00 AM EDT (10:00-10:10pm JST)
The Japanese station announces the strike and then goes to live footage of the towers as captured from a helicopter, while the newscasters speak to a correspondent on the phone in voice-over. The broadcast is similar to those in America but the footage is much closer to the tower, so much so that viewers can see into the hole made by the plane. When the second plane hits, the camera is positioned such that the first tower is blocking the view of the second, and the plane is visible in frame for a second before the explosion. Occasionally, part of the helicopter obscures the footage. The newscasters seem concerned and the broadcast is similar to the American one.
NHK (Tokyo, Japan) September 17, 2001 9:00 AM EDT (10:00-10:10pm JST)
After a brief introduction the broadcast switches to a newscaster at a desk in front of a greenscreen that shows the White House. Then a different broadcaster speaks in front of a greenscreen of a street in New York. The broadcast then focuses on the Federal Reserve. The rest of the broadcast then focuses on Osama Bin Laden and the Taliban.
While the first Japanese broadcast was very similar to the American one at the same time, the second broadcast was very different in its focus. The Japanese broadcast was more concerned with the economic and political global ramifications of the attack than the effect on day-to-day American life. The narrative presented in the September 17th Japanese broadcast was one that would have more relevance to the Japanese people.