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Like most expatriates, I spent the week following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington in a ceaseless quest for information and understanding. All my reading, TV watching, and Web-surfing sometimes seemed gruesome, even ghoulish, yet I felt compelled to continue. Virtually everybody I know in France, both Americans and French, behaved the same way.
My weeklong odyssey provided some insights -- and a few disappointments. As I hungrily devoured old and new media, I was struck at how often I was frustrated that each source lacked something another provided. Take television: For all its inanity and repetitiveness, nothing could match TV's sheer emotional impact and immediacy. I loathed watching the video of the plane hitting the second tower over and over -- yet I didn't avert my eyes because it was the only way to puncture my numb disbelief. The Internet, on the other hand, carried the day for person-to-person communication when phone networks were overwhelmed, but I often found it disappointing as a source of news and too atomized to provide a sense of shared community.
More than anything, I was reminded in the days following the disaster that media are not interchangeable. The Net is no substitute for TV and radio, even though it offers streaming audio and video clips as well as an almost endless wealth of information. Articles in newspapers and magazines provide more perspective than broadcast news and also let readers assimilate information at their own pace -- which is vital for achieving understanding. And nothing rivaled the power of the telephone for giving me comfort and reassurance by letting me hear my parents' voices.
WORD OF MOUTH. Such observations may seem obvious, but in an era when execs and media gurus speak constantly of "convergence," I'm reminded just how unique each medium really is and why no single source can fill all of our needs.
As with many people, my introduction to the World Trade Center disaster came via the oldest and fastest method of communication -- word of mouth -- from a colleague who heard about it over the phone. Immediately afterward, I switched on French TV but found just daytime soap operas and talk shows. (We don't have cable or satellite reception in our office.) E-mail and the Web froze from a surge in traffic, and calls to fixed and wireless phones in New York were impossible.
Cut off from information and suspended in a state of agonizing ignorance, I got only small scraps of insight from a colleague who had reached a friend in the U.S. using Instant Messenger. Score one for the Internet: That little IM window was our temporary lifeline.
TOWN MEETING. Soon, French television switched over to blanket coverage of the disaster, and we began to see the sickening clips of flames and falling bodies. Colleagues gathered in front of the TV in the conference room, gasping, weeping, and talking in a strange blend of French and English. Together we watched the shocking collapse of the buildings and cried out in horror.
For the next three hours, the TV became like a town meeting place. People drifted in and out of the room as they reached their limit for sorrow or returned to seek solace in the company of others. This was an experience unique to television. People never would have gathered in front of a computer screen or stood around a newspaper spread out on a table.
That realization was heightened when I wandered in a daze to a local Irish bar in search of English-language cable television. There I found dozens of people sitting and standing in silent communion, gaping at frightening images on SkyTV. I was amazed but somehow not surprised to run into a French acquaintance, who wandered up to me, tears streaming down her face and a cigarette perched between her trembling fingers. "What is happening to the world?" she asked over and over, as we stood together watching the flickering TV screens.
OVERWHELMED. I suspect that most everybody in the bar was there because, like me, they needed to experience the news in the company of others. When I made it home that night and could finally see CNN and BBC, I continued to watch TV with my mate and our houseguests, even though there was little breaking news by then. What I rediscovered about television that day was its unique ability to create and reinforce a sense of community.
I was also struck by a technical phenomenon that's often overlooked by Net boosters. Through that first night and into the next day, I could reach hardly any Web sites because of heavy traffic, and for the most part, phone calls to the U.S. remained impossible. It's no surprise, and certainly not to their detriment, that these media were overwhelmed: After all, they're designed to accommodate moderate traffic spikes, such as on Mother's Day, but not the unprecedented demand that occurred on Sept. 11.
Designing switched networks to accommodate such enormous demand makes no sense economically, because on normal days the majority of the capacity would go unused. Even so, it was a powerful reminder that traditional broadcast technology, where the number of receivers has no effect on delivery quality, has technical advantages in times of crisis. Neither the phone system nor the Net will likely ever be able to replicate that -- which should be considered by proponents of Net-based telephony and video.
OTHER VOICES. Most people, I think, equate the Web with immediacy. Yet many Web sites didn't deliver content that was fresh or meaningful. Warmed-over versions of Reuters or Associated Press stories on Yahoo! did nothing for me, especially when they were often posted long after they were written. Some sites, including BusinessWeek Online, scrambled to produce original, analytical stories in the days following the event. But much of the "news" on the Net was pretty stale in the first few days.
A critical plus for the Web was that it offered alternative voices, often not heard in the mainstream press. Sadly, some of those opinions were drowned out by chat-room banter, with its tendency toward heatedness. I shudder at the hatred that pours out of some people when they're hidden behind the anonymity of an online persona, but I value that they have the right to say what they think, unedited.
The Net's role will likely become even more important as we navigate an uncertain future. In the days immediately following the tragedy, Americans at home and abroad drew comfort from hearing a common message. Now, as shock gives way to uncertainty, the richness and diversity of views on the Web will play a vital role in our national conversation.
In the end, my media immersion gave me as much information and communication as I could handle. I got to that point, though, only by picking and choosing. More than ever, I am convinced of the Net's power as a communication tool. But it still has some growing up to do before it rivals TV for breaking news. On the other hand, the slick packaging and sound bites on TV often left me feeling insulted. As for print, good old print -- reading it was like putting on a pair of comfortable shoes, and I bought every newspaper and magazine I could find. For an American posted in Europe, trying desperately to comprehend what had happened to my homeland, I needed all these media to sort it out.
Reinhardt covers technology issues from Paris Edited by Douglas Harbrecht
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Copyright 2001 , by The McGraw-Hill Companies Inc. All rights reserved.
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