The Imagery of 9/11

A d a m C a l e

M a j o r R e s e a r c h

T h e I m a g e r y O f 9 / 1 1

30 /10 /12

Almost internationally accepted as the worst terrorist attack to date, the events of September 11th 2001 are still remembered today; over ten years later. The main reason for this is because of the abundance of imagery relating to the events. Images of the event remain engraved into people’s minds and the indelible memories are a constant reminder of the day that this horrific attack was broadcast live to the world. With thousands of networks broadcasting live feeds of the events as they unfolded, people worldwide watched as the second plane ploughed into the South Tower in front of their very eyes. This was unprecedented. Previously, scenes like these had only been seen in disaster movies and now they were on every news channel from here to Israel, only, this time they were real.

The sheer shock factor of the live footage makes for fascinating viewing however it is the imagery that came to follow that I feel holds real interest. With Images of the attack gracing the front page of nearly every major tabloid in the days following the attack I want to explore how one of the biggest news stories of the past century was handled by our very own newspapers.

I have managed to get my hands on a collection of British news papers from September 12th 2001 and what follows is a detailed breakdown of each paper’s coverage and particularly the use of imagery.

British Newspapers from September 12th 2001

Full list of papers:

.The Daily Mail

. The Sun

. The Times, Times 2, The Times Insert

. The Guardian

.The Daily Telegraph, The Daily Telegraph Insert

.The Independent, The Independent Wednesday Review

The Daily Mail The Sun

The Daily Mail The Sun

The Times Times 2

TheTimes (Insert)

The Guardian The Daily Telegraph

The Daily Telegraph (Insert)

The Independent The Independent Wednesday Review The first thing that strikes you when you line the six main tabloids up next to each other, aside from the fact that they all have a (near enough) full page cover image which is a rarity in itself, is the similarity of these images. Apart from the Daily Mail, every front cover uses a very similar image. In actual fact, when you take a closer look, you realise that four of the six newspapers are using exactly the same image on their front covers. Further investigation shows that the same image is in fact on the back cover of The Daily Mail and an incredibly similar image heads the coverage for The Guardian (as well as The Star and The Express which I don’t have copies of). So what is it about this image? Why is this the image of choice for our nations newspapers?

Photograph by Spencer Platt

The image in question was taken by New York based photographer/journalist Spencer Platt and the ownership of the image belongs to the stock photo agency Getty Images Inc. Whilst this may be some help in explaining why all of the papers ran with the same image (due to the very nature of stock photographs) it does not fully explain this decision by any means. Assuming all of the papers dealt with Getty Images, they would still have been faced with a selection of images to choose from and yet, somehow, they all independently came to the same decision. They all chose the same image to be released on September 12th to sum up the previous day’s events. I think there are various reasons behind this. Firstly and most obviously, this is an extremely dynamic image. Showing the moment of impact on the South Tower as the North Tower billows with smoke just behind, the image does, quite literally, sum up the attack. It also does its job as the front cover of a newspaper; it grabs your attention and gives you that desire to know more. Another reason for the choice of this image becomes more apparent when you read the headlines that accompany it:

‘Doomsday America’ -‐ The Independent

‘Apocalypse’ -‐ The Daily Mail

‘War on America’ -‐ The Daily Telegraph

These are all resemblant of the kind of name you’d expect the next Hollywood disaster movie or war film to have and when you realise this, then what I said earlier about the imagery of the event being unprecedented really comes into play. What the newspapers are doing, whether they realise it or not, is putting the event into a context for us. The only comparable events are those that happen in films so by using this particular image and certain language we are given a context, or a scale even, of how tragic these events are.

It is when you consider the power that the imagery of the attack holds, that you start to question the terrorist’s aims. As well as killing thousands of civilians it is almost certain that the attack was designed to make a statement. The attack was a display of the might and power that the terrorists posses and the impending creation of so many indelible images may not have just been a by-‐product, they may have been an actual reason for the attacks. The images are a kind of legacy. To this day they still strike an emotional chord throughout the world whenever they are viewed and it is very likely that this lasting effect was accounted for when the attacks were being so intricately planned.

This idea can be neatly compared to the American’s use of the atomic bomb towards the end of The Second World War. As well as providing mass destruction of an absolutely devastating proportion, the use of the nuclear weapons demonstrated, and came to represent, the might of the American military. It wasn’t, however, simply the destruction caused that created this spectacle of American power, it was the ensuing imagery that had an equal part to play. The iconic image of the mushroom cloud became a symbol of America’s potential to devastate entire cities and because of this, a strange sense of irony unfolds when you place the image of a mushroom cloud next to Platt’s image of the 9/11 impact.

Spencer Platt 9/11 Mushroom Cloud WW2

The similarities between these images come not only from the visuals but from the representation and symbolism. Both the image from the nuclear attack and the image of the Twin Towers symbolise America’s power in military and economic fields. However, the image of the Twin Towers is twisted by the aspect of destruction which in turn twists the symbolism from that of power into weakness. The fact that the towers were demolished using American Airlines planes, which also symbolise America’s modernity and economic prowess, just adds to the representation of weakness as well as the representation of the terrorist’s power and ability to manipulate.

When you look this deeply into the symbolism of the 9/11 attacks it becomes very apparent that they were planned visually. One person who touched upon this in quite a controversial manner soon after the attacks was British artist; Damien Hirst. Hirst described the attacks as ‘visually stunning’ stating that:

The thing about 9/11, is that it’s kind of like an artwork in its own right. It was wicked, but it was devised in this way for this kind of impact. It was devised visually... (Damien Hirst, 2002)

When all of the evidence is taken into account, such as the symbolism of the targets and the weapons as well as the unavoidable creation of such unforgettable images, the intricacy and thought that went into the visual aspect as well as the destructive aspects of the attack become undeniable. As Hirst goes on to say:

You’ve got to hand it to them (the terrorists) on some level because they’ve achieved something which nobody would have ever thought possible...So on one level they kind of need congratulating... (Damien Hirst, 2002)

It was this comment that caused the most controversy but when you truly understand how considered the attacks were, on so many levels, you cannot help but agree. However dastardly the terrorist’s plans were, they executed them exquisitely and both the violent and the visual nature of the attacks would have, in their eyes, been a resounding success. If it were not for the visual success of the attacks then what would our news papers of actually had to publish?

When you actually go on to look at each publication’s separate coverage of the event you can’t help but notice that it seems a bit formulaic. Each paper has the same components displayed in a similar order. I know that news is news and they are just telling us what happened, but as with the cover, each tabloid, having made independent choices, have managed to come to the same outcome. Each newspaper seems to adhere pretty closely to the format below:

• Front Cover -‐ Image of impact accompanied by Hollywood film title.

• Images of the victims/survivors covered in dust.

• ‘Flipbook’ images of the plane crashing or the tower collapsing.

• A ‘Falling Man’ style photograph.

• Info graphics and diagrams of the event.

• A page on The Pentagon

• Articles on George Bush and his response.

• Articles on Tony Blair and his response.

• Articles on Osama Bin Laden the number one suspect

• Images of the Palestinians’ reaction.

Photograph by Shannon Stapleton

Photograph by Stan Honda Photograph by Suzanne Plunkett

(Above are a few of the other images that were repeated most commonly throughout the coverage)

The main difference between newspapers and the televised news is that when we buy papers we are looking for considered news. We are looking for extra information, facts and figures that we don’t get from the live footage broadcast by the news channels. What we get when we look at the coverage of 9/11 is something quite different. Apart from the last few articles about the politics of the attack the rest of the coverage is a rushed and ill considered print representation of what we already know from watching the live coverage. It seems that on this particular day, the newspapers failed to do their job properly. For me the publication which came closest to effectively covering the story was the Daily Telegraph’s eight page supplement. The actual paper’s coverage was just as bad as the rest but the insert took a more considered and tasteful approach letting the images do the talking. With a wrap around cover that sums up the events with the more delicate, but equally harrowing, image of a smoke engulfed New York skyline, the supplement allows the audience to absorb the images. This is why it is so effective. The images are powerful enough on their own; each one telling its own story. There is no need for dodgy info graphics or step by step flipbook images, the photographs of the event say enough on their own.

The Daily Telegraph – Eight Page Supplement

I think the overall coverage that our tabloids provided us with was pretty poor for numerous reasons of which I will go on to explain, however, there are certain images that were published within these newspapers that are simply disgraceful and it is beyond belief that they were released at all, let alone on the day immediately after the attack. The first two of these controversial images come in the form of ‘Satirical’ sketches. I use the word satirical in the loosest way possible as these images don’t provide us with any satire; instead they provide us with rushed, ill considered and ultimately distasteful illustrations.

Taken from The Independent The Daily Mail

It is hard to understand how these have been given the nod when you think about the scale of what they represent. 2,823 lost lives are being summed up by these rushed sketches. You have to question how much information was available to the illustrators and also to the editors of the papers. These images are clearly ill informed and I think that when you dissect the rest of the coverage you realise that this sense of being ill informed is a reoccurring theme.

Whilst these sketches are small and possibly forgivable, the third controversial image is much bigger and in a much more prominent place.

Times 2 -‐ Front cover

If there were an award for the most brash and offensive use of Photoshop ever then I think this would be the front runner. I honestly cannot come up with any excuses for this. It’s not small, it’s not tucked near the back of the paper, it’s not even apparent whether it’s supposed to be tongue in cheek or if someone actually thinks that this is an acceptable vantage point to take on the previous day’s events. ‘A terrorist’s eye view’; you just cannot comprehend how this was deemed acceptable.

As mentioned before, the newspapers largest downfall on this day was their lacking ability to give us any information that we didn’t already know. Instead of statistics and inside stories we were faced with sequences of pixelated stills from the previous days live television coverage.

Taken from The Daily Telegraph

Taken from The Sun

Taken from The Daily Mail Taken from The Independent

Taken from The Times (Insert)

Taken from The Sun

The first thing to ask yourself when looking at these images is simply; are they necessary? For me the answer is no. They don’t tell us anything that we haven’t already watched on the news or learnt from the front cover of the paper. If a picture says a thousand words then why do we need three of them? I think the answer to this question lies in a few places. Firstly I have to go back to the lack of information. The newspapers seem to think that the live coverage from the event was so extraordinary that people will not be satisfied by still images of the tragedy. They need action and impact and the way to do this is to break the crash down for them into frames so they can witness each excruciating second. This is where the newspapers were wrong. Instead of trying to compete with the televised news they should know that we as an audience come to them for something different. We are looking for considered news, articles of interest and that little bit of extra information. This is why it is ultimately the lack of information which seems to account for the poor quality of the coverage.

Another reason for these ‘flipbook’ images may steam from the strange compulsion to replay a disaster over and over. I certainly found myself entranced by the images I was watching and, as I know others did, took a strange joy in watching them over and over. This may largely be down to the fact that the images are something new and controversial. In a world were modern war imagery is largely censored or even hidden, this public display of terror was available for all to see. You have to wonder whether such graphic imagery of the event would ever have been released if it wasn’t so publicly available right from the offset.

I think the real fascination with the footage comes from the fact that you know that it’s real and this is where the final reason for these step by step images comes into play. It’s the Hollywood blockbuster theory again; this is something that we have never seen before and these dynamic images are the easiest way for us to relate. In a sense you feel that it is wrong to compare these events to a film as the comparison seems to glorify what happened but I see it as more of an ode to the events. They cannot be compared to anything that has happened before so we have to be spoon-‐fed comic strip style storyboards to understand the context of what we are being presented with.

With the increasing sense that the papers were lacking in information you would think that a series of diagrams and information graphics would be their saving grace. I am afraid however, that they are quite the opposite.

Taken from The Independent

Taken from The Sun Taken from The Times

Taken from the Daily Telegraph

As you study these images you begin to realise that for something called ‘Information graphics’ they are not actually giving us very much information at all. What they are in fact doing, yet again, is reiterating what we already know. Yes, they are presenting the information in a new format but it really isn’t any different. They are not giving us the death rates or the destruction statistics they are merely telling us that some planes hit some towers. They are trying to glorify the information and pad it out by adding fancy arrows and vectors of planes but all this does is add to the confusion of these already hectic images. When you again think about what is being represented, the use of the default ‘kaboom’ shape actually becomes quite distasteful.

Taken from The Times (Insert)

The worst example of info graphics showing us absolutely nothing comes courtesy of The Times and their twenty three page insert (above). This diagram, focused on the attack on The Pentagon rather than the Towers, is of no use what so ever. All it is showing us is the location of Washington DC, the rough whereabouts of The Pentagon within Washington DC, the exact whereabouts of The Pentagon within Washington DC and finally; what shape an explosion would look like if a child drew it. This is the reason that the featured info graphics do nothing in saving the coverage’s credibility and instead just help it dig its own grave.

Taken from The Daily Mail

When you look at The Daily Mail’s graphical take on the events (above) you are again faced with a map, some towers, some arrows and some planes but what makes this diagram more interesting than the rest is the inclusion of the time frame. The right top corner gives you a list of times showing when each stage of the attack took place. It is after seeing this that you realise that again the news papers are trying to emulate the footage shown on the television less than twenty-‐four hours before. They have given us a step by step guide in pictures and now they are going to do it with diagrams and times. If you refer back to the graphic from The Times Insert you will see that they are even trying to give the effect of zooming in.

Another thing to note about The Daily Mail’s diagram is the inclusion of The Statue of Liberty. As it was still less than a day since the attacks the symbolism surrounding the towers that we know today was yet to evolve. For this reason the inclusion of the landmark is used to give a context just in case anyone was unsure where these events were taking place. In hindsight this choice looks ridiculous but you can easily see how, so soon after the attacks, the magnitude of them, and what they would become, may not have been fully realised.

Although it is easy to mock or ridicule these diagrams you do have to take into account that they have been done under a heavy time constraint and the information available was very limited. It was not until days after that the body count was finalised and any real statistics could be calculated. For this reason you have to overlook the naivety of the coverage as the tabloids would have found themselves in limbo. All they had was the news that had been shown so they had to make the most of it. It goes without saying that if more information was available then the coverage would have been more substantial and of a higher quality, but this was something that could only come with time.

Time plays a major factor when looking at the imagery of 9/11. The images that have stood the test of time and stayed with us are not necessarily the ones that we were first presented with. Out of all of the images that were published in papers across the world there is one that has come to represent the events like no other can. The image in question is ‘The Falling Man’. The power that this one image has in summing up such a major event so perfectly is of great interest for multiple reasons. For a start you have to ask why an image of one individual person falling from the towers has risen from the piles of 9/11 related photography to reign alone as the one that is remembered. And why, even, was it this particular image of a falling person that was chosen. Knowing about ‘The Falling Man’ and the controversy surrounding its publication I was surprised, when studying the collection of newspapers, to see that similar images feature in nearly every one.

Taken from The Times The Independent The Guardian

Taken from The Daily Mail Taken from The Sun

All of these images are equally shocking. They are dynamic, powerful and deeply saddening. Why is it then, that they are any different from the ‘Falling Man’? Why have they not caused the same controversy? Why have they not come to be a symbol of those catastrophic events? Whilst on the topic of symbolism I would like bring The Sun’s falling man image to your attention. This image is of particular interest as, similarly to The Daily Mail’s info graphic featuring The Statue of Liberty; it has been put into context for the audience. The smaller, circular image in the corner shows ‘the bigger picture’ if you like. It becomes apparent again that the magnitude of events had not hit home at the time of publication. If you were to even mention The Falling Man these days everybody would know you are referring to 9/11, however on the day after, The Sun obviously weren’t sure if the image alone was enough to get the message across. When you adopt this mentality then it adds all the more justification to the use of Spencer Platt’s tragic image on all of the front pages.

The image that came to be known as ‘The Falling Man’, similarly to the ones above, was first published on September 12th 2001 in multiple newspapers around the world, but most notably, in The New York Times. The New York Times chose never to publish the image again due to the huge amount of controversy that ensued as a result of its original use, however, they did use it six years later on page one of The New York Times Book Review. Was it just time that gave them the confidence to publish it again or were there other factors involved. Although time is a great healer, and no doubt had a big part to play in the re-‐use of the image, I think that most of the credit should go to an article that featured in the 2003 edition of Esquire Magazine. The article was titled ‘The Falling Man’ and it was written by Tom Junod. The article is of great use and interest to me as, amongst other things, it attempts to make sense of the image and its significance.

The Falling Man, Richard Drew, Photograph, 2001

The article begins by explaining how presence of mind is mandatory within the photography trade and it was this presence of mind that gave us this incredible image.

The photograph was taken by Richard Drew of the Associated Press. Drew was fifty-‐four years old when the attacks happened and he took this photograph. This was not the first time that he had required the presence of mind and the audacity to continue shooting even when faced with such peril. In 1968, when Drew was just twenty-‐one, he was stood behind Robert F Kennedy when he was assassinated. Drew got Kennedy’s blood on his coat but this didn’t stop him. He proceeded to climb onto a table and take pictures as the dwindling life drained from Kennedy’s half open eyes. It was this cold mentality, this dedication to the cause that came into play when Drew was informed of the attacks on the morning of September 11th 2001.

As the bodies rained down from the towers Drew did not look away, instead he aimed his camera and as each body hurtled towards the, ground he followed it for a twelve shot sequence. He did this

about fifteen times for fifteen individuals before the tower began to collapse and he had to make a move. It is when you learn this, that the likelihood of one particular image becoming iconic increases in impressiveness. Not only did this image emerge from the masses of published photographs of falling bodies, but it emerged from the hundreds, if not thousands, of images that never made it to press. Out of the one hundred and eighty odd photos that Drew took that day he only sent one to the press.

You learn in photo editing to look for the frame. You have to recognise it. That picture just jumped off the screen because of its verticality and symmetry. It just has that look. (Richard Drew)

As Drew explains, his experience led him to an informed decision and he instinctively knew that he only needed to send one photograph; this one particular photograph that would go on to symbolise 9/11 for millions of people; The Falling Man.

So what is it exactly that made this image so iconic? In Tom Junod’s article he suggests that it is the balance of the image that is so special. It is that balance that provides the potential to create an iconic and instantly recognisable image. Junod refers to the image as a flag or a banner; an image that represents so much whilst being so simple. The grace in which the man appears to be falling also plays a big factor. He appears to be at peace. It is as though he has accepted his fate and now he just wants to get on with what he has to do in the most elegant way possible. The man dissects the picture; he splits it in two. On his left is The North Tower and on his Right is the South Tower. He connects the two, but at the same time, he divides them. He falls in an almost regimented fashion, perfectly vertical yet wonderfully relaxed. His clothes are hardly flapping. The photograph is tranquil. The photograph is also a lie.

This depiction of a man who seems so at peace with the decision he has made, who seems to be in control of his fate, is very misleading. In reality he is exactly the same as everybody else that fell from those towers. He is hurtling towards the ground at an astonishing rate where on arrival he will be obliterated by the sheer force of the drop. He was never at peace, we don’t even know if it was his choice to jump. All we know is that for a split second, from a certain angle, he looked relaxed. In one photo out of a set of twelve that came from a collection of fifteen sets which were photographed by one out of thousands of people who were present with a camera, a man looks relaxed. And this is the image that we remember.

We have not chosen this image to remember above all of the other images, what we have done is chosen this image to represent every other image. It represents every person that fell from the towers on that dreadful day. It represents every person that died. The image has been likened to The Grave of The Unknown Soldier in the way that it stands for and symbolises every single person that was lost in the attacks of 9/11. The image shows our ideals. We know the events of that day were devastatingly violent and brutal so we remember it using an image that represents peace and acceptance as this is what we would want for people that were lost to this tragedy. In a day of attacks that were so intricately planned to cause mass visual devastation and to create a set of images that would go down in history showing the power of terrorists we have found the one chink in their armour, the one image that doesn’t convey the mass destruction. We have found the one image that represents the events on our terms and this is the image we are going to hang on to.

If this is now the case then why was the image initially so controversial? Why was it shunned by the public? Ironically, it was shunned then for the same reason that it is embraced now; because the person in the picture has never officially been identified. Whereas now the unidentified man has grown to beautifully represent all that were lost, then, he was just a person who was plummeting to their death, only, he wasn’t just a person. Someone would know who he was. They wouldn’t see a person, they would see their dad or their brother or even their son. The use of this image was seen as intrusive, an invasion and disregard for basic human rights. The image had hit a nerve, a nerve that wouldn’t settle for many years but thankfully, finally has.

Photograph by Spencer Platt Photograph by Richard Drew

If you look back at the image that summed the events up then compared to the image that sums it up now you can see a great difference. You have the big picture, the brutal reality that grabs your attention; or you have the almost fabricated, delicate memory of everyone who we lost. You have the grand scheme of things and the smallest detail. You have what we choose to remember and what we want to forget.

Bibliography/Research material

Newspapers:

The Sun – 12th September 2001

The Daily Mail – 12th September 2001

The Times – 12th September 2001

The Times Insert – 12th September 2001

Times 2 – 12th September 2001

The Independent – 12th September 2001

The Independent Wednesday Review – 12th September 2001

The Guardian – 12th September 2001

The Daily Telegraph – 12th September 2001

The Daily Telegraph Insert – 12th September 2001

Other:

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2011/09/pictures/110908-about-911-september-9-11-twin-world-trade-center-towers-indelible/ (Additional 9/11 images)

http://www.contempaesthetics.org/newvolume/pages/article.php?articleID=510 (Article regarding Damien Hirst’s comments) http://www.esquire.com/features/ESQ0903-SEP_FALLINGMAN (The Falling Man, article by Tom Junod taken from Esquire magazine) http://www.channel4.com/programmes/911-the-falling-man (The Falling Man, Channel 4 documentary based on Junod’s article) http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/september-11-attacks/8743184/September-11-photographer-on-capturing-The-Falling-Man.html# (Video, Richard Drew talks about his photograph, The Falling Man)

Documents

The Imagery of 9/11