British Perspective Of 9/11

I remember waking up on the morning of September 11th and watching the events that happened in New York: the United States was under attack. I was 10 years old and horrified that the world was coming to an end. The news broadcastings kept replaying the planes crashing into the twin towers over and over, so it appeared to me that dozens of planes were terrorizing the United States. I was young and confused and saw everyone in a state of panic. However, as I discovered within a few hours, nobody else seemed to know what to make of the events either. America was experiencing an overwhelming tragedy. As we learned in the days following, this terrorist attack was led by the Al-Qaeda who hijacked a total of four airplanes earlier that morning. Two of the airplanes were crashed into the Twin Towers and another into the Pentagon (Sullivan 2001) - all buildings that greatly represented the United States. America went into a state of shock and was looking to the government for answers as to what would happen next. The week following September 11th was sheer mayhem as we were forced to sit idle and wait for direction. The world knew that the worst was yet to come.

In Britain, a 24-year old woman caught a glimpse of the terrorist attacks on the television and immediately turned on the radio. What followed, she said, was “the most horrible thing I had ever heard” (Claire 2007). Word of the terrorist attacks had spread worldwide within a few hours. Britain, “America’s most active ally in the struggle against terrorism” (Erlanger 2001), was immediately broadcasting the attacks. It seems that we are much more oblivious to world events in America, as I have observed during my month in England. A good example for this is how there were very few reports broadcasted in the United States on the terrorist attacks that have happened in England such as the bombings of the London Underground and on public transportation. However, the casualties of September 11th far outweigh these events. As recorded in the Columbia Journalism Review, six reporters from the Guardian and the Observer and 14 from the Mirror were in New York on the story within 24 hours - the Guardian returning with 16 pages of coverage (Kennedy 2002). Within these 16 pages, the Guardian’s media critic is quoted as saying “what was so notable about all the coverage was the way in which