NY Times turning into NY Post?

greenfreak

New Member
The NY Post has always had a reputation for being barely a step above a tabloid. But I'm starting to wonder if the NY Times is well on their way there, or if they always were and I'm just noticing now.

First news story recently:

Transcript Released of Emergency Phone Calls in NY Sept. 11 Attacks
Barbara Schoetzau
New York
28 Aug 2003, 23:40 UTC

In New York, the agency that owns the World Trade Center site, the Port Authority released more than 2,000 pages of transcripts of tapes of emergency telephone calls and radio transmissions made after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

As expected, the transcripts offer heartbreaking details of efforts to escape the World Trade Center, evacuate the buildings, calm those trapped on the top floors and, in the end, deal with frantic calls from families and friends.

According to the transcripts, employees throughout the complex called Port Authority police to report smoke and fire, and asking if and how they should leave the buildings. One transcribed call came from a manager of "Windows on the World," the restaurant that sat atop one of the towers. None of the guests or staff at the restaurant at the time survived the attack.

The transcripts were released as a result of a lawsuit filed by The New York Times. Earlier, the newspaper and the Port Authority had agreed to make the documents public. But Port Authority officials changed their minds, saying the transcripts would be too wrenching for the families of the victims. The newspaper then filed a lawsuit seeking the transcripts. Last Friday, a judge agreed with the newspaper and ordered the agency to release the transcripts by 5 p.m. Thursday.

The decision to make the transcripts public has been controversial, particularly among some of the victims' families. Some support the ruling. Sally Reganhart lost her son, a firefighter only on the job for a few months. She says information provided by the transcripts could save lives.

"Every day is a realization that we have to live without our loved ones for the rest of our lives," he said. "The only goal that I have is to make sure that something like this will never happen again. There is no way to assure that or to work toward that without knowing what happened that day."

But other families oppose the ruling. Sonny Goldstein, who also lost a son, says the release of the transcripts is making victims' families relive the nightmare of September 11.

"This is not going to help anybody. This is not going to save anybody in the future. This is always going to hurt the people that are involved in it," he said.

The Port Authority has asked the media to refrain from using what it calls "gruesome, gratuitous or personal details."

VOA news

Tell me, WTF is the point of releasing this? There's only one reason why that I can see; to sell newspapers because people's morbid curiosity will get the best of them and they'll sell like hotcakes.

They couldn't stop there. They obtained and released a new video, what a coincidence, right before the 9/11 anniversary:

New Footage of Attacks on World Trade Center Surfaces

Saturday, September 06, 2003

NEW YORK — The only videotape known to have captured both planes slamming into the World Trade Center (search), and only the second image of the first strike, has surfaced on the eve of the second anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

The footage, obtained by The New York Times, was taken by a Czech immigant construction worker whose son at one point came close to accidentally erasing the rare, chilling footage, the newspaper reported on its Web site Saturday.

Federal officials investigating the trade center collapse are trying to obtain a copy of the hourlong tape, which could cast light on the cause of the north tower's collapse by helping to determine factors including the exact speed at which the first plane traveled, The Times said.

The only other known footage of the first plane's impact came from a French film crew making a documentary about a probationary firefighter.

Pavel Hlava, an immigrant construction worker from the Czech Republic (search), shot footage of the first plane hitting the north tower as a sport utility vehicle he was riding in entered the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel en route to lower Manhattan.

Hlava, who made the tape looking at the camera's relatively low-resolution LCD display, told the Times he did not see the first plane as he focused on the towers. But the tape shows a whitish object hitting the tower, followed by dust spurting from the tower's side and a silvery, expanding cloud.

Passing through the tunnel, Hlava, his brother and his boss heard a radio report that a small private plane had hit the World Trade Center, straight ahead outside the tunnel. That hardly prepared them for what they saw when they emerged: the north tower, looming over them, bursting with flames.

As Hlava continued filming, the second jet shrieked behind him. He caught the plane as it shot into the south tower, exploding into an orange fireball and sending papers flying in every direction. Later, after crossing the Brooklyn Bridge, he focused on the buildings again as the south tower tilted to one side and collapsed.

Hlava and his brother, Josef, unsuccessfully tried to sell the tape in New York and in the Czech Republic, the newspaper said.

Hlava said through a Czech-language translator that language difficulties hindered his ability to sell or release the tape to the media. He also said that so much time had passed that he had doubted there was still interest in the tape.

"All his friends, they told him, 'Hey, you made a mistake. You waited too long,"' translator David Melichar told The Times.

Hlava's boss, who was driving the SUV, also had strong objections to selling the tape, Melichar said.

Hlava and Melichar's numbers are not listed and attempts by The Associated Press to reach them were unsuccessful.

In the weeks and months after the attack, the tape sat in Hlava's apartment in the Ridgewood section of Queens.

On one occasion, Hlava said he noticed that his son was playing with the video camera and erasing the tape. Hlava snatched the camera away before either of the plane impacts were erased.

A friend of Hlava's wife obtained a copy of the tape and traded it to another Czech immigrant to pay off a bar tab. Another woman learned of the existence of the copy brought it to the attention of a freelance news photographer who took the tape to The Times.

The photographer, Walter Karling (search), who now describes himself as Hlava's agent, said it had not been sold to any television station. The Times said it had not paid for the tape.

Karling's number was not published and he could not be reached for comment by The Associated Press.

The tape is scheduled to be shown Sunday morning on the ABC program "This Week."


I know this hits closer to home for me than others around the world but it saddens me, the need for people to exploit the pain and suffering of others. I don't see how the transcripts or the video could help anyone other than the people making money off of it. :cry2:
 

Gonzo

Infinitesimally Outrageous
Staff member
Greenfreak said:
Tell me, WTF is the point of releasing this?

A reminder. It's actually surprising the Times released it at all considering their stance on our President & his oil war.
 

Gonzo

Infinitesimally Outrageous
Staff member
greenfreak said:
Do you really think anyone's forgotten?

Actually, yes I do. Look at where we were on 09/10. The look at the next year. Look at us now. :(
 
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