The Families


September 6, 2002


BROOKE GLADSTONE: We're back with On the Media. I'm Brooke Gladstone.

BOB GARFIELD: And I'm Bob Garfield. The families of those who died in the World Trade Center attack are often referred to simply as "the families." "The families" want this; "the families" feel that. But when it comes to how they feel about media coverage this past year, the so-called "families" are hardly homogenous. Each has a different relationship with the news. On the Media's Marianne McCune spoke with three women who lost someone they loved.

MARIANNE McCUNE: You figure books about September 11th are made for the people who weren't close to what happened, who want somehow to get nearer to death and destruction. But Susan Carroll's shelves are loaded with them. When she rides alone in her car, sometimes she'll listen to a recording of a series of radio stories about the victims and her parakeets and dog have had to endure the same TV documentaries twice sometimes -- she watches and videotapes them.

SUSAN CARROLL: Sometimes I think I'm looking for my own answers -- that I might see something that I didn't see last time; something that might answer questions that I might have in my own head; questions that I don't even know that I have.

MARIANNE McCUNE: Susan Carroll's son, Kevin Colbert, was an investment banker in the World Trade Center --one of those who died when the buildings collapsed. This year she says one of his brothers moved to Florida, and his girlfriend went to California -- both fatigued by the daily onslaught of information. But Carroll wants to see everything.

SUSAN CARROLL: It's, it's not real! It's not real yet. But I guess I have to watch it to make it real. I don't have enough. [DOG BARKING] Kevin's dog.

SUSANNA FERRERA: In the beginning I used to read everything.

MARIANNE McCUNE: Susanna Ferrera's fiance, John Cruz, worked for Cantor Fitzgerald.

SUSANNA FERRERA: And until they found him, faithfully every day I would buy the Post and I was kind of running my own chart to see where people were found, and I would write down their names, go on to CNN.com and see what company they worked for. And I did my ratio, and I'd say okay, well, you know, 4 out of the 6 were Cantor Fitzgerald people and I'm like okay; like they're finding a lot. And I did that until they called us and they told us that they found him and they didn't find him until the end of February.

MARIANNE McCUNE: Ferrera says she was grateful at the time for something to do -- some way to take control. And since then she's been grateful for the bigger picture the news has given her, like one article about a group of people who were trapped in one of the towers.

SUSANNA FERRERA: They said that they were standing around with 40 other people and they were just holding hands and they were praying, and like just to know that like-- I guess they weren't alone in a sense is comforting, because that's how I think -- I keep thinking to myself, my God, look - was he by himself?

MARIANNE McCUNE: Ferrera says she sometimes wades through the details of that morning -- the points she or John might have made some other choice that might have saved him. And so it actually helped, she says, to watch two French filmmakers' documentary on CBS about the efforts of firefighters that morning. Somehow, seeing them unable to solve the problem, relieved her. And when she read about an air traffic controller who knew the planes were heading toward the towers before they hit and also felt terribly guilty, that helped too.

SUSANNA FERRERA: It kind of comforted me, because it made me just think that you know what -- like there was nothing he could do -- and the same way with me that day -- there was nothing that I could have done.

MARIANNE McCUNE: But that's the kind of story that makes Roxanna Batista squirm. She tries painstakingly not to think about who knew what before the planes hit and what they could have done. Reading about it reminds her of a saying in Spanish. [ROXANNA BATISTA SPEAKS SPANISH SAYING]

ROXANNA BATISTA: Don't -- don't talk about it! Be about it! I don't need to know! My sister died. Why should I need to know what you could have done? Makes me point the finger at you.

MARIANNE McCUNE: Her 24 year old sister, Giovanna Porus [sp?] is gone from her family's two-story home next to JFK Airport. Batista lives with her husband and two sons and a mother whose mind she says is being corroded by news stories about the failures of the FBI [CHILDREN SPEAKING BACKGROUND] or the Fire Department or the airlines, even if the reports detail ways to do better next time.

ROXANNA BATISTA: I don't want to point no fingers. I just want to say, okay, she died; it was a tragedy. But if you start showing me about "Ohhhhh! Do you know that there were threats? Or do you know that this person got a letter? Or do you know that there were this, or do you--?" Why do I need to all of this? Also, all of a sudden I know that my sister maybe would be alive if you would have been a little more efficient with your work? [AIRPLANE BACKGROUND] I don't need to know that.

MARIANNE McCUNE: And when she's forced to think about it, rage eclipses all other emotion.

ROXANNA BATISTA: I hate it -- I hate everybody. I do!

MARIANNE McCUNE: And so Batista wishes all that were published in a paper just for the government; just for the people who need to know what to change. Even Susanna Ferrera, who reads almost everything, sometimes wishes she could protect herself from knowing.

SUSANNA FERRERA: I was reading through the New York Times Magazine on how they had found one man who had like a quarter of his leg attached to-- like a piece of pants with like a belt and they were like that specific -- and I think at a time like that, family members didn't need to know that -- because that was one of the hardest issues we've had to deal with up until now --is knowing that we have this 6 foot guy who--you know, looked amazing, and then to know that they found pieces of him. I actually kept it because I could not -- I couldn't believe it -- how bad it was.

MARIANNE McCUNE: "Okay," she says, "they have to print it. But they could add a warning -- something like 'this section will be really tough for family members.'"

SUSANNA FERRERA: The New York Times actually had an article about two months ago that detailed I guess some of the last phone calls that people were getting and I had e-mailed it to his best friend, and he called me, and he said "Sue -do not read that article." He said "Please." He said "Just wait." And so I kind of listened to him.

MARIANNE McCUNE: Susanna Ferrera and Roxanna Batista and Susan Carroll don't always want to hear the stories the media want to tell. Sometimes they want to tell the story themselves. Susan Carroll says she worries people will forget her son.

SUSAN CARROLL: It seems as time goes by everybody disappears, and you're still left with that emptiness and-- I don't want people to forget them. I want people to remember 'em more, and in my way, doing some of these interviews, is making sure that nobody forgets 'em.

MARIANNE McCUNE: It's Carroll's way of tailoring the story of September 11th -- shaping it into the story she wants told. She says her son's girlfriend, the one who went to California in part to get out from under the New York media's grasp [MUSIC UP AND UNDER] has just produced a CD of songs about Kevin.

WOMAN: I REMEMBER WHEN YOU WALKED IN THE ROOM LAST SEPTEMBER YOU LEFT A LITTLE TOO SOON--

MARIANNE McCUNE: One more spin on a story that far too many people have the bad luck to own, and it's the media's delicate task to tell it all -- for them and for the rest of us. In New York, I'm Marianne McCune for On the Media.

WOMAN: YET IT'S HARD TO LIVE WITHOUT YOUR SMILE AND THE WORLD IS...