BOB GARFIELD:
Al Jazeera is news seen through a different cultural and historical lens than American news, and that's good. Variety is a vital part of a healthy media diet.
Sixteen-year-old Brandan Illis has been gorging on news since at least the age of six, when the Twin Towers fell. When WNYC’s Radio Rookies, a program that teaches kids had to tell their own stories, put out a call for personal tales of 9/11, Brendan answered because 9/11 and news has played a big role in the direction of his life.
BRENDAN ILLIS [NARRATION]:
I'm driving with my mom from our home in suburban New Jersey. Like most of my friends, I just got my permit but in a lot of ways I'm different.
BRENDAN’S MOM:
When you were in pre-K, the one thing that you wanted to do when you were a grown up was watch the news.
BRENDAN ILLIS: [NARRATION]
As soon as I was old enough, I started reading the newspaper.
BRENDAN’S MOM:
And you didn’t start with the comics like most kids do.
[CLIP]:
RADIO ANNOUNCER:
Warning: The Michael Savage Show contains adult language.
[END CLIP]
BRENDAN ILLIS [NARRATION]:
I also listened to a lot of conservative talk radio, and my parents begrudgingly allowed it.
MICHAEL SAVAGE:
The radical Muslim world has declared war on America. We are at war!
[RADIO SOUNDTRACK IN BACKGROUND]
BRENDAN ILLIS [NARRATION]:
9/11 was my introduction to politics, world diplomacy, war, the economy - it affected everything. I may have been the youngest neo-con ever,
MICHAEL SAVAGE:
This is your Pearl Harbor!
9/11 COMMISSION MEMBER:
Members of the Commission. Your staff has developed initial findings to present to the public on the nature of the enemy…
BRENDAN ILLIS [NARRATION]:
In 4th grade I even recorded the 9/11
Commission hearings on the cassette tapes, so
could hear them when I got home from school.
9/11 COMMISSION MEMBER:
We will focus on Al Qaeda’s history and evolution.
BRENDAN ILLIS:
At school I’m known as the walking history book. I take it as a compliment.
TEACHER:
Why is this important? Brendan?
BRENDAN ILLIS:
He was the spiritual leader of Al-Qaeda.
TEACHER:
Right.
BRENDAN ILLIS [NARRATION]:
Most kids my age don’t really think about how 9/11 changed our country, I wish they did. The effort they put into gossiping and sneaking out, I put into researching politics and current events.
[MUSIC UP AND UNDER]
Last year I started a blog. It’s like a direct line into my head. I posted this question to my followers: Do you think 9/11 affected our generation?
ANNA:
Like we just - we don’t care as much as we should.
BRENDAN ILLIS [NARRATION]:
This girl I’ve never actually met in person responded.
ANNA:
My name’s Anna and I’m from Phoenix, Arizona.
BRENDAN ILLIS:
Can you tell me quick, like how you met me?
ANNA:
Over a blogging site called tumblr.
BRENDAN ILLIS:
Anna told me about one time when tumblr crashed, which it does a lot.
ANNA:
When it came back up people were posting pictures of the Twin Towers saying, oh tumblr crashed, and they were saying like, it’s the same thing, which – nowhere near it.
BRENDAN ILLIS:
That’s awful.
BRENDAN ILLIS [NARRATION]:
They were comparing the deaths of almost 3,000 people to a website crashing for a couple of days.
Maybe I take the World Trade Center attacks more seriously because we talk about that kind of stuff in my family.
BRENDAN’S MOM:
Please don’t eat with your fingers…
BRENDAN ILLIS [NARRATION]:
Like one night at dinner:
BRENDAN’S MOM:
There’s a difference between hearing that a thousand people died and actually seeing images of people jumping to their deaths because have no hope of survival.
BRENDAN ILLIS [NARRATION]:
My parents always give us answers, even to difficult questions. My ten-year-old sister Kathryn just learned about 9/11 from a documentary she saw on TV.
KATHRYN ILLIS:
Would you rather die by jumping out a window or from the fire?
MOM:
I don’t know - I honestly hope I’m never put in that position – to know that the people in that building, many of them were in that position, is just - heartbreaking.
BRENDAN ILLIS [NARRATION]:
I’m in the youngest group of people who remember 9/11. As a 16 year old who gets it, I fear that people younger than me won’t understand and that it’ll lose its importance. If we let our guard down it could happen again.
[SISTER KATHRYN LAUGHING]
BRENDAN ILLIS:
Just say “hello”
KATHRYN ILLIS:
Hi.
BRENDAN ILLIS [NARRATION]:
I’m with my little sister Kathryn in the back seat of the car.
BRENDAN ILLIS:
Can you tell me how old you were when 9/11 happened?
KATHRYN ILLIS:
Uh - I wasn’t even one. I was zero.
BRENDAN ILLIS:
Do you think it had a pretty big effect on you?
KATHRYN ILLIS:
Not - really.
BRENDAN ILLIS [NARRATION]:
The world didn’t change for Kathryn on September 11th, she’s never known anything else.
KATHRYN ILLIS:
Well it was big to other people – it was big, but not to my life.
BRENDAN ILLIS [NARRATION]:
My other sister Sarah thinks we talk about it too much.
BRENDAN ILLIS:
So you have no Specific memories of that day?
SARAH ILLIS:
No! You – do you think I haven’t thought about this before? [LAUGHS] I’ve tried to remember.
[OVERTALK]
BRENDAN ILLIS:
So you don’t, you don’t – you don’t-
[OVERTALK]
SARAH ILLIS:
I don’t even remember having you as a brother when I was three! [LAUGHS]
[LAUGHTER]
BRENDAN ILLIS [NARRATION]:
She’s starting high school this year.
SARAH ILLIS:
It’s like it’s the past. But it shouldn’t be like the main event, like the focus of the country.
BRENDAN ILLIS [NARRATION]:
Like a lot of people in my generation, she thinks of 9/11 as a singular event. But I can’t look at it that way.
9/11 was the first news story I ever really followed. I would hear Michael Savage mention a person or an agency on a show and I would be like – well, I don’t know what that is. So I’d look it up. And I would go from one Internet search to the next.
Then Savage changed his broadcast time, so I started trawling the Internet for a substitute show and found a whole new world of information.
[MUSIC UP AND UNDER]
So now it wasn’t a singular event for me. It’s a road, one I’m still walking down today. For WNYC I’m Radio Rookie, Brendan Illis.
BOB GARFIELD:
Brendan Illis’ story comes to us courtesy of WNYC’s Radio Rookies.
