Keeping the memory of terror alive

3 Sep, 2002 09:32 PM3 mins to read

By DAVID USBORNE in New York

For America's print and broadcast media, the next seven days will be far from ordinary.

Whether out of a sense of civic responsibility or simple rivalry, editors and controllers will swamp the land with coverage marking September 11.

Is the motivation different? Will every network, newspaper and weekly magazine bulk up with commemorative pieces because no one has the courage not to?

Remembering September 11 is an exercise in flag-waving. Ignoring it would suggest a failing in patriotic duty.

"It's got to the point now where you really can't not do something," said Robert Thompson, of the Centre for the Study of Popular Television at Syracuse University.

"So many places have planned so much stuff, it would be almost blasphemous to ignore it."

No editor can resist a good anniversary. Last week, five years after Diana's death, CBS screened a gooey TV movie about her biographer, Andrew Morton.

Three weeks earlier, the country was asked yet again to remember Elvis Presley. It is 25 years since his demise.

Those Americans who don't want to relive September 11 have few options this week, other than rowing out to sea.

Some magazines, such as Time, Newsweek and The New Yorker, will concentrate their coverage in special tribute sections. The New York Times plans extra pages on September 11-related stories, and has published a book of pictures of Ground Zero, the Pentagon and the Pennsylvania crash site. At the last count, there were 150 books on the attacks on the shelves or in the pipeline.

Frenzy is more furious still on the airwaves. CNN has already aired a documentary, America Remembers, and is punctuating its schedule with set-piece snippets on the tragedy.

A year ago, network executives said they had set aside their usual competitive impulses to provide Americans with the clearest, most objective coverage of events possible.

But such gentlemanly behaviour is long gone. Producers have scrambled to secure the big names, sometimes offering large sums in return for exclusive access.

Not all have been pleased. Former police chief Bernard Kerik turned down all offers to attach himself to a single network, cable or broadcast.

"It's almost as if someone was trying to figure out who was going to get the best coverage of Roosevelt declaring war after Pearl Harbour," says Don Hewitt, the executive producer of CBS' 60 Minutes.

"The competition is in poor taste."

CBS can most reasonably claim first-anniversary bragging rights. It has snagged an exclusive interview with President George W. Bush.

Rudolph Giuliani, the former New York mayor, will be all over the airwaves, as will his successor, Michael Bloomberg. NBC news anchor Tom Brokaw will host a musical tribute called Concert for America. Fox, cable giant HBO and the public service station PBS all have specials planned.

There are only a limited number of big-name personalities available with direct association to the tragedy.

One is Lisa Beamer, the widow of a passenger on the plane that crashed in Pennsylvania. Her husband was identified as the man who cried "Let's roll!" as the passengers tried to overcome the hijackers. She will be the property for one day of CNN's Larry King.

The losers in this scramble are the international news organisations.

Sunny Mindel, a spokeswoman for Giuliani, says the demand from abroad has been relentless.

"All seven continents have called in."

- INDEPENDENT

* The Weekend Herald this week devotes the Review & World section to the state of the world a year on from the terror attacks.

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