Workers adjust beams of the Tribute in Lights on the tenth anniversary of the
September 11 terrorist attacks. Photo: Getty ImagesMindful of this, television networks, magazines and others planning special coverage of the anniversary have weighed issues such as how much American audiences can stomach, and how much such a solemn occasion should be viewed as a business opportunity.
There are no uniform answers, and media outlets are approaching it differently.
Time magazine is running no ads at all. Newsweek and People have sold ads just as they would for any other issue. Cable channels, which are devoting big blocks of their schedules to September 11-related programming, are also largely running commercials as usual. But there are exceptions. CNN, for example, is to show a joint HBO-Time special commercial-free.
In its Sunday edition on September 11, The New York Times is publishing a special section that will have only commemorative ads.
''There's no precedent for something like this,'' said Lawrence Burstein, the publisher of New York magazine, who added that he initially did not expect to sell many ads in the 10th anniversary issue. To his surprise, he found that advertiser demand was strong, with the magazine experiencing a 46 per cent increase in the number of ad pages in the September 5-12 double issue, compared with the September 13 issue last year.
He and the New York sales and editorial team decided to forgo the typical promotional campaign employed for special issues and gave advertisers who had already bought space in the magazine the option of bowing out.
''It is something that touches people in all kinds of different personal ways,'' Burstein said, ''and I felt like it was a decision that the advertiser had to make.''
There are few publications or television channels that are not be tackling the issue.
The Military Channel will explore why the Pentagon sustained far less damage than the twin towers. Animal Planet will run a special episode of the series Saved, about survivors of the attacks whose ''unique bonds with their pets helped them deal with loss and cope through pain'', according to the show's promotional materials.
Showtime will broadcast The Love We Make, about Paul McCartney's efforts to organise a benefit concert. CNN is planning four separate documentaries. Fox News is showing a documentary about the construction of the Freedom Tower.
The National Geographic Channel, which is partly owned by News Corporation, secured one of the biggest coups of the season - its exclusive interview with George Bush, the president when the attacks occurred. It wanted to get ahead of the avalanche of coverage and decided to show the interview on August 28.
The interview, heavily promoted on other News Corporation channels, including Fox News, was secured with the help of a producer, Peter Schnall, who headed several behind-the-scenes programs about the White House while Bush was in office.
By chance, the scheduled two-day interview began the day after American forces killed Osama bin Laden in Pakistan.
Michael Cascio, the senior vice-president for production at the National Geographic Channel, said Bush and his associates had placed no restrictions on the interview.
Cascio has wondered whether the week of programming his network has planned is sufficient.
''Given its magnitude - it is the singular event in our lifetime, in the past 50 years - we decided a week almost isn't enough.''
The National Geographic Channel has scheduled a marathon of related coverage on September 11.
Other outlets also decided to try to get out ahead of the pack.
Adam Moss, the editor of New York magazine, decided its issue - an A to Z compendium of September 11-related vignettes - should be published well before the 10th anniversary so it would reach readers before the onslaught of coverage began. ''I'm sure, inevitably, people will feel it's too much and shut down at some point,'' he said. ''We just hoped we could get what we feel is a pretty good issue out there before others did.''
People magazine took a similar approach. Its commemorative issue, which features articles about 10 children whose fathers died in the attacks before they were born, appeared on newsstands last week.
''I think by next week at a certain point, absorbing all of this is going be tough for anybody,'' said Larry Hackett, People's managing editor.
Since news magazines tend to be keepsakes, both Time and Newsweek have printed additional copies for their anniversary issues this week, with Time adding 40,000 to its print run and Newsweek adding 30,000.
There has also been debate about how the anniversary should be covered. Should it be left to great thinkers and elegant writers to define what the attacks have meant for the country? Or are Americans better served by the accounts of those who experienced the attacks firsthand?
''Our take is through photos and the first-person stories of people who were directly affected by it,'' said Richard Stengel, the managing editor of Time magazine. ''That was the differentiator for us.''
Newsweek editor Tina Brown said she realised as she planned the anniversary issue that the bar would be high for delivering distinctive writing.
''My own thought was, 'How am I going to be moved again?' '' she said. ''But I found that my ability to be moved by this still is profound.''
There was little disagreement about delivering a comprehensive look back at the day the attacks occurred.
But there is an evident tension about how much time to devote to the terrorist acts versus the decade of costs and consequences they provoked.
Some news executives and journalists said the days leading up to the anniversary were opportunities to assess the many other meanings of the attacks: the emphasis on homeland security, the actions of the military, the restrictions on civil liberties, the effects on national politics.
Newsweek will run articles by writers including Andrew Sullivan, who examines how fear defined American life in the aftermath of the attacks.
Last week, MSNBC began to show a special three-hour documentary, Day of Destruction, Decade of War.
Rachel Maddow, who is co-anchoring the documentary, said September 11 ''is such an important event on its own terms and for its implications'', adding, ''I think there's infinite room to talk about exactly what happened that day and the decisions made by the government, right or wrong.''
And there is the question of exactly what to do with images of the burning towers, and the many horrific scenes from that day.
Newsweek decided not to use the towers at all on its cover, opting instead for just blue sky and an aeroplane.
Marc Burstein, the ABC News executive producer for special events, said the network had decided to use the images, noting that it had not done so since the first anniversary of the attacks.
''We will use the video,'' he said, ''very sparingly and very judiciously.''
NEW YORK TIMES
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