arch/ive/ief (2000 - 2005)

Get The Story Out, titelt de spreekbuis van Wall Street. Welke Story ? De Amerikaanse TV-zenders hebben beslist hun concurrentie voorlopig op te schorten. Om efficiënter het Amerikaanse en wereldbewustzijn te bewerken. Hier komt de tekst :
(noot : de Wall Street Journal heeft ook een stuk over welke bedrijven er allemaal in het New Yorkse WTC gevestigd waren, Deutsche Bank had er vier verdiepingen).

September 12, 2001

Broadcast, Cable Networks Call a Truce,
Agreeing to Cooperate to Get Story Out
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

The broadcast and cable networks decided to put aside their relentless competition as they entered an unprecedented agreement to make all their footage available to one another in the wake of Tuesday's terrorist attacks.

All of the major networks --
Viacom Inc.'s CBS;
General Electric's NBC,
CNBC and MSNBC (a joint venture with Microsoft Corp.);
Walt Disney Co.'s ABC;
AOL Time Warner Inc.'s CNN;
and News Corp.'s Fox and Fox News --
went into blanket coverage mode soon after the first plane struck the World Trade Center shortly before 9 a.m. EDT and carried live the second plane crashing into the south tower. The decision to seek a treaty on competition was pitched by Don Hewitt, executive producer of CBS's "60 Minutes," to CBS News President Andrew Heyward, who then called his rivals. All agreed.
(...)
"National interest must be served in a story of this magnitude. Standard competitive issues fall by the wayside and the need to inform thoroughly takes priority," said Erik Sorenson, president of MSNBC. That goes for cost as well, as all of the networks are spending millions and millions of dollars to cover the event, as well as losing millions of dollars by dropping all commercials Tuesday.
(...)
At MSNBC, the news channel's staffers were grabbing their own cameras at home to shoot footage. NBC has robotic stationary cameras mounted around the New York area, which also were in use. These have helped take the place of helicopters, which normally would be used in an emergency but have been grounded by the Federal Aviation Administration.

Walter Isaacson, chairman and chief executive of the CNN News Group, said the network has deployed all eight of its satellite video phones, which provide jerky images but allow camera crews to uplink images without cumbersome satellite trucks. The network also is busy collecting amateur video, including close-ups of both planes crashing into the two towers, that it planned to air on CNN Tuesday night. Mr. Isaacson said CNN began simulcasting on TBS, TNT and CNNfn at about 10 a.m., something the network has never done before.

Barbara Olson, who died on one of the hijacked planes, was a contributor to CNN, Mr. Isaacson said. Active in the Republican Party, she was the wife of U.S. Solicitor General Theodore Olson, who argued President Bush's case before the Supreme Court during the presidential-election dispute.

Besides pre-empting all of their own programming and commercials, the networks took the unusual step of using sister entertainment cable networks to carry coverage. Music channels MTV and VH1 both dropped regular programming to carry the feed from sister network CBS. ABC used ESPN as its cable news channel, while Fox dumped programming from its FX entertainment channel to carry Fox News Channel fare.

News Corp.'s WWOR New York was knocked off the air because its antenna was on the World Trade Center and hence has no coverage.

All of the networks are sticking with around-the-clock coverage for the time being. "We're not sure yet when it will end," said Bill Wheatley, executive vice president of NBC News.

Interestingly, while the networks all rolled out their star anchors, ABC, CBS and NBC stations in New York often relied more on local coverage than their own network's national feed.

Future programming also will be affected by the attacks. This Sunday's broadcast of the prime-time Emmy awards on CBS has been delayed for at least a week, and there was talk in Hollywood of postponing the traditional start of the new TV season, which is this Monday. Major League Baseball canceled Tuesday's games and the National Football League was undecided about whether it would play games this Sunday.
(...)