If you’re too young to remember that day, you’re also probably too young to know what a home satellite dish is, or what you could discover with one before the networks switched to all digital and encrypted signals. Not just the standard cable choices. Many normally inactive channels were rented out for instant closed-circuit video delivery…everything from The Tonight Show to syndicated shows to, commercials and promos to, yeah, remote feeds for news departments. This was back when “news” meant camera crews and reporters on the scene.
More than a dozen such channels had what some called “wild feeds”…raw footage sent in for editing before air, or video of someone being interviewed live by studio anchors remotely. I spent the remainder of the day shifting from one source to another, unable to look away or turn off the projection TV in my studio.
That made me a tagalong witness to long, uninterrupted “B roll” of the buildings, the destruction, the rescuers, and random scenes of streets, abandoned cars, and sometimes people…all covered dust and ash. Interviews had more detail. Images were there onscreen for minutes at a time instead of just a few seconds snipped out for the American attention span. Over time, video and information trickled in from crews at the Pentagon and in Pennsylvania, as well as private videos. I especially remember one shot from street level in New York, showing the second airliner passing overhead and crashing into tower number two.
For most of the day and night I had a video recorder in constant use. In total, there were about 6 hours of random video from various sources, in addition to some of the on-air coverage.
I suppose before long I should try and digitize those tapes. But I guess there really is such a thing as TMI – “Too Much Information”.
None of those video cassettes have gone into a player since that day, 25 years ago. But I’m one of those people who will truly “Never Forget”.
