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An exhibition "Headlines of History: September 11, 2001" at the Press Club brought back memories of the fateful day and proved the impact of print media on the public mind.
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BLACK TUESDAY: Visitors at the gallery relive the 9/11 experience.
CONSCIOUSLY THEY do not want to talk about it anymore. But paradoxical is the fact that they cannot forget that horrendous occurrence. The incident will always be associated with shock, separation and sorrow.
People don't want to relive it anymore, the ghastly eleventh day of the ninth month will continue to haunt them as the darkest day of the year. Indeed, September 11 has been embossed in the annals of American history forever and etched in every American mind evermore with all its infamy.
With less than two and a half months left for the anniversary of America's date with death,
herculean preparations are afoot by the US media to pay homage to all those who lost their lives on the fateful day when the twin towers of the World Trade Centre was bombed last year by terrorists. And as the American media gears up for the event, the focus of which is to renounce terrorism, the media worldwide readies for a concerted commemoration of the catastrophe.
In consonance with the rest of the world, the twin cities also kicked off, in its own noble way, an effort to recall the gory tragedy with a Poster show titled "Headlines of History: September 11, 2001", on Wednesday last at the Hyderabad Press Club.
The Press Club was transformed into a veritable newseum. Showcased in the News Museum was the front page of about 50 international newspapers reporting on the horrific 9/11 events. Captured in the papers for all times to come were some rare pictures detailing the gore and grotesque bombings of the WTC.
Many might feel that the tragedy would not have reached the drawing rooms and the bedrooms but for CNN and BBC. But what was evident from the poster show was that newspapers worldwide were also largely responsible for etching the monstrous occurrence collectively in the world conscience. The general buzz going around the venue of the three-day show was that newspapers played a pivotal role in creating a ubiquitous condemnation for terrorism globally.
For once, those who feel that the print is dead and the Internet and the telly rules, would have been proved wrong by the opinion of the people who had been a witness to the poster show. "The detailed description of the event in black and white is certainly more close to an actual experience. And reading a disaster is always more emotive than visioning it on the television," said a senior TV journalist describing the poster show. He said that a newspaper scored over the telly because of the fact that many emotional humane angles, could be given to a story.
Indeed, the satellite television might have given umpteen number of repeat telecasts of the air-planes crashing in the twin towers, but if you try to recall the most memorable picture of the year 2001, the only one picture of veritable poignance that your mind would conjure is the still picture of deep smoke emanating from one of the severed WTC towers with one half of the passenger jumbo caught in between the crash, that was published in most of the newspapers worldwide.
When the news of President Kennedy's assassination in the early Sixties filtered over the airwaves, everyone swapped stories of exactly what they were doing at the time of the homicide. In accordance with age-old adage, history repeated itself, and people worldwide were talking once again, endlessly, of what they were engaged in when they first heard of the gruesome WTC bombings. Back home in Hyderabad, there was pitch darkness on the fateful day when the news was being aired on satellite channels. The grid had failed. As the news spread, the denizens of the cyber-savvy twin cities were fervently eager but they didn't regret the fact that there was no electricity and hence no television. "Tomorrow's newspapers would anyway carry the stories," they consoled themselves.
SOUVIK CHOWDHURY
Photo: Mohd Yousuf
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