At 3:33 into this video clip, FOX news begins a live video feed from the Pentagon site. They're shooting from an entrance ramp on Route 27, well north of the Pentagon building itself, and the opening image is of a sideways police car blocking the highway lanes, and in a little closer, is yellow police crime-scene tape, tautly strung from a merge sign support in the center. We get the message: do not enter. The FOX reporter on the scene, Audrey Barnes, has just arrived and is asked what she can see:
"I am on the grounds right across from the Pentagon and what I can tell you is it's still on fire, there is black smoke just billowing throughout the Pentagon grounds, there are several hundred Pentagon employees on the grounds, they are crying and hugging each other. I see about 15 pieces of fire apparatus, ladders its just a scene of utter chaos out here. Traffic, it's still getting by in front of the Pentagon, but most of this roadway has been shut down."
At about 4:04 the video suddenly changes to a much improved view---if not for disaster responders, at least for television viewers and journalists. We can see things! One of the first things we see is a uniformed state policeman moving quickly from left to right while craning his neck to look up--in that heavy-handed "checking out for attack" gesture from 40's gangster movies. I'm not complaining: some stage business!
It is 9:58am in real time, and the FOX network has suddenly been given a taste of the good life. The film that the viewers at home are watching, is identical to that which is running on CBS, whose viewers have grown fat on a steady diet of it. The sudden advent of exciting footage causes the skinny FOX anchor, Luke McCarthy, to interrupt her excitedly, to ask if she knows what it is we are seeing,
"because I'm not sure you can see the picture, we do have a picture now, we can see some people and we can see the smoke and flames you're talking about, and some of the emergency equipment, this is the first time we are seeing that, so please go on Audrey, from your vantage point, with what you are seeing, but we are seeing emergency crews, we can see flames, and a moment ago we DID see some people, so Audrey, go right ahead."
"Audrey Barnes? Are you still with us?" Asks another anchor, Michael Garguilo. McCarthy says, "I'm not sure if we can, I want to get them to pan back to the left here, to see what detail we can, oh, OK, we've lost that picture, well it's a camera we don't control." Honest words indeed.
September 11th, 2001, by the Washington D.C. affiliate of FOX5, and preserved for posterity at
archive.org
The video does not match your narrative.
ReplyDeleteYou are terse!
ReplyDeleteRight you were. Correction applied. Many thanks.