How non-news media covered 9/11


September 13, 2002


BOB GARFIELD: What do you do if you're a media outlet whose programming would generally have nothing to do with 9/11 on a day when that was all people cared about? If you're the Food Network or the Off-Track Betting Simulcast, you didn't break format. But other non-news outlets did address the anniversary in their own ways, and OTM's Mike Pesca was reading, watching and listening.

MIKE PESCA: Trashy television, its defenders point out, only got that way because people watch. TV, the producers of Fear Factor and Elim-a-date [sp?] say is democratic. Each media consumer has access to hundreds of channels, and oh, yeah, millions of internet sites, dozens of radio stations, and in some towns more than a couple newspapers. Like a multi-party parliamentary system, American media is in some ways more democratic than American government, and Nielsen boxes work better than Florida voting booths. But on days like Wednesday, the media gets a little less democratic than usual.

TV HOST LEE: Wendy, if you will, tell us what's happening at Ground Zero today.

REPORTER WENDY: Well, Lee, ceremonies will be going on all day long, and they've been going on since the wee hours of this morning. It started with bagpipe players coming from all five burroughs in New York City....

MIKE PESCA: That coverage of the ceremonies and issues surrounding the September 11th anniversary could have come from any number of networks --and it did -- the Christian Broadcasting Network. Reverend Pat Robertson's 700 Club was one of many outlets to offer its own take.

REVEREND PAT ROBERTSON: We, we don't know what's in their evil mind, but believe you [sic], they've been planning something for the last couple of years for now. So we need to pray. God can frustrate the plans of evil people.

MIKE PESCA: The 700 Club broadcasts its mix of news and prayer on basic cable systems carried into tens of millions of homes, but it's the sort of outlet that's off the radar screens of the broadcasting establishment. Other sources of information aren't sources of news, per se; but on days like 9/11 they're challenged to act like it. Some choose to stay true to their mission.

RADIO HOST MICHAEL: Everybody has to handle today in their own way. That's what they have to do. They have to handle it the way they feel comfortable. Let's go to Mary in Staten Island -- Mary you're next on 10 50 ESPN Radio.

MARY IN STATEN ISLAND: Hello Michael?

RADIO HOST MICHAEL: Hello.

MARY IN STATEN ISLAND: My-- Hi. I, I almost feel embarrassed to be asking a baseball question today, and-- you know-- [BOTH SPEAK AT ONCE]

RADIO HOST MICHAEL: Please don't.

MARY IN STATEN ISLAND: Okay. But I really don't ever get a chance to call you. Do you think the Yankees are going to use Platoon [sp?] at third base for the playoffs, cause it seems like--? [BOTH SPEAK AT ONCE]

RADIO HOST MICHAEL: Absolutely not.

MIKE PESCA: The 9/11 anniversary took on an elephant-in-the-living-room quality on ESPN Radio, but the opposite tack was taken on New York's WFAN --the FAN. Mike Francessa who hosts the most listened-to sports program in the country opened his show by explaining its temporary irrelevance.

MIKE FRANCESSA: It's always kind of tricky with the FAN because some people always expect us to do sports no matter what happens; no matter what happens in the real world; no matter in what way the reality rears its ugly head. But there are certain days where it's just a little different. There are certain days when sports just kind of stands still, and today is one of those days.

MIKE PESCA: For a few weeks after the attacks, WFAN transformed itself from sports talk to terrorism talk using essentially the same mix of bold if not fully-informed hosts and angry calls from listeners to occasionally achieve a real sense of electronic community. Talk radio could switch formats to accommodate the shifting world, but after 9/11/01 one part of the news media remained temporarily unaware. The funny pages, up through October, were still-- funny! Comic strips which have to be submitted a month or so in advance were literally and for the first time figuratively in suspended animation, blithely serving up gags and groans unaware that the world had changed. Artist Chip Dunham draws a strip about pirates called Overboard. His anniversary strip had the pirates talking to Chip himself about the need to wax eloquent -- but all they could muster was a moment of silence, staring into the darkness.

CHIP DUNHAM: I said do I want my character -- you know, knocked overboard by a wave or do I want to try to do something with my couple of seconds? I mean to be honest, what profound [LAUGHS] things do I have to say? And-- maybe just bring a little silence to it.

MIKE PESCA: Stephan Pastis draws the strip Pearls Before Swine. His strips have always ended in a gag -- except the one that ran this Wednesday. His main character, Pig, writes a letter saying "Dear God, Please don't let any child ever lose a mom or dad again." Pig mails it and then waits for days by the mailbox, eventually falling asleep under the stars. Pastis says he's not going to turn Pearls Before Swine into something maudlin, but the occasion called for him to break his own rules.

STEPHAN PASTIS: If it's in your and, and you want to say something, then you should say it. I think if you're doing it out of a sense of obligation, then it's probably going to come across as not very sincere. I mean people just sense that right away. So, my angle on it I think was not the crying Statue of Liberty angle that a lot of [LAUGHS] people did. It's pretty different.

MIKE PESCA: In some ways the news media were obligated towards solemn coverage of the anniversary. The official ceremony strove to achieve it, and to be the only outlet with a different tone was to play the rebel in a day dedicated to unity. But solemnity wasn't reflective of the entire mood. MTV viewers could find reassurance in a special called Pop Life Goes On. The sports radio crowd vented, and while the Daily Show with Jon Stewart took the night off, all the other late night shows joked at least a little. The most unusual anniversary broadcast was the Howard Stern Show which re-played last year's coverage. At one point during the rebroadcast Howard asks what's the point of staying on the air? Everyone must be watching the news by now. He was probably right. Even the web site which practically transcribes every moment of the Stern show tuned out that day. But as a time capsule heard one year later, Stern presented something for his audience that was raw and real and frequently confused and jarringly different from the carefully constructed remembrances, and therefore, pretty worthwhile. For On the Media, I'm Mike Pesca. [MUSIC]

BROOKE GLADSTONE: Coming up, what is a weapon of mass destruction? And why newspapers sometimes bury the big story.

BOB GARFIELD: This is On the Media from NPR.