9/11: Analyzing Media Analysts

Given that 220 senior military, intelligence, law enforcement, and government personnel, 1200 architects and engineers, 250 pilots and aviation personnel, 400 professors, 300 survivors of 9/11 do not believe the official account of what happened on September 11, 2001, I wanted to know what news media analysts had to say about the absence of any serious investigation of this issue by major news media.

On the weekend of of the 9th anniversary of 9/11, I was invited to New York by I.N.N. World Report to co-moderate with Ryme Katkhouda a panel discussion on Islamophobia -- one of eight panel discussions at the symposium on "How The World Changed After 9/11". Ryme asked me to also attend another panel, "The 4th Estate Fails In Its Duty And The Birth Of Alternative Media", which I did, and couldn't help but end up analyzing the media analysts.

It has often been said "The first casualty of war is truth". What about truth in the never ending war on terror? The first panel, chaired by Priya Reddy -- an on air news anchor, documentary filmmaker, radio producer, and a print journalist -- was asked to look at modern reporting, military censorship, taboos, and techniques often used by media to hide the truth. The panel was asked to explore the birth of the citizen journalist movement, open publishing, and alternative broadcasting.

The panel was made up of Robin Andersen -- Professor of Communication and Media Studies at Fordam University, Danny Schecter -- author, filmmaker and commentator on economic issues, Lynn Landes -- publisher of The Landes Report and Ecotalk.org, and Christina Borjesson -- award winning journalist and author of "Into the Buzzsaw, Leading Journalists Expose the Myth of a Free Press".

While I learned from these experts, I also found myself disagreeing with them on a few issues. A brief commentary follows:

"I'm also a media critic," said Robin Andersen. She talked about the the non-existent weapons of mass destruction, and the "brutal images from Abu Ghraib". However, she did not call the Iraq war a crime.

Former Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson, chief U.S. prosecutor at the first Nuremberg trial, called waging aggressive war "the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole", according to Benjamin B. Ferencz, Chief Prosecutor for the United States Army at one of the twelve military trials held by the U.S. authorities at Nuremberg, Germany.

Ms. Andersen also did not talk about U.S. reparations for its invasion of Iraq. Recall that Iraq was forced to pay reparations for its invasion of Kuwait -- a former province of Iraq.

Danny Schecter spoke about the sinking of the USS Maine on February 15, 1898 which helped precipitate the Spanish-American War. He praised the National Geographic which in its dedication to the truth sent a submarine to get the facts, and found that it was an explosion in the boiler room that caused the sinking.

The National Geographic, in the matter of 9/11, has not shown the dedication to fact-finding that it did in the sinking of the USS Maine. Despite all the evidence to the contrary, Nat Geo has supported the official version of 9/11 by airing documentaries such as "Inside 9/11" and "9/11: Science and Conspiracies".

Mr. Schecter went on to say that the collapse of World Trade Center 7 (which is not even mentioned in "The 9/11 Commission Report", and which hundreds of scientists and engineers claim was an "inside job" using highly sophisticated explosives) "was not important unless we can connect it to something that's happening today."

I didn't quite understand Schecter's reasoning. Aren't the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, and the "war on terror" happening today? Aren't they connected to 9/11?

Lynn Landes spoke of the tampering of voting machines to which the news media pays insufficient attention. It has turned off many voters, including Ms. Landes, and resulted in a "shadow government" running the U.S.

Christina Borjesson said she "agree[d] with Danny Schechter that looking into [World Trade Center] building 7 doesn't matter." Doesn't matter Ms. Borjesson?

The fatally flawed account of 9/11 has led to the deaths of uncounted Afghans and more than one million Iraqi's, the devastation of Afghanistan and Iraq, the killing of more that 4400 American soldiers, millions more have been wounded and/or made refugees. Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz and Harvard economist Linda Bilmes have estimated the Iraq war will eventually cost between $4 and $5 trillion -- that's over $13,000 for every U.S. citizen, and the costs continue to increase as the wars go on.

Ms. Borjesson added, "I know less about 9/11 today than I knew on 9/11." She said that she's been trying to get funds to "bring together journalists and 9/11 experts" to investigate what happend on 9/11. In a somewhat contradictory statement given her position on World Trade Center building 7, Ms. Borjesson said, "9/11 is the seminal event".

During the question and answer period, I asked Ms. Borjesson, "What can I do to help?" I did not get a response to my question.

When the program ended, I gave a copy of "9/11 Unveiled" to the four panel members and the moderator.


Enver Masud
Founder, The Wisdom Fund