This article is from the May 2011 issue of Total Politics

Collecting political memorabilia is not a habit of mine. So, I nearly turned down this opportunity – until I remembered my copies of the Washington Post, New York Times and USA Today that I bought in the days following the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

It was clear from the attacks that the assumptions we had built our everyday lives upon had vanished in two clouds of death, and everyone was asking the same simple question: what does this mean?

Catharsis requires answers, and I hoped the media would play a key role in providing them. Yet, rereading the news reports 10 years on, it’s clear the media spoke in one voice – with no voice at all. Every single page (even the Style section) in the wall-to-wall coverage had some variation of the same headline: “America Under Attack.” The sports pages – a reliable escape from the realities of life – dramatically announced that all 15 major league baseball games had been cancelled, giving 9/11 its place in history alongside D-Day in that respect.

Faced with tragedy, most of us, it seems, became human again. We reached for the things that draw us together, and give our lives meaning: religion, family and friends. And the newspapers, for all their failure of vision, captured this perfectly. Overnight, the heroes we celebrated on our front pages were no longer sports stars or entertainers, but those who would risk their lives to save others – the firemen and police officers. I am struck by letter 20 of 20 letters to the editor of the New York Times, entitled ‘Live on, for them’:

None of us will ever be the same again. But we must show those who are against freedom and liberty and decency that we are moving forward. Don’t be a hostage to them or to the TV this weekend. If you are not working, go out and live for those who died. Enjoy your weekend, your family, your life and your country as they would.
Gary Gorman, Brooklyn, September 14, 2001 (retired NYPD officer)

The only meaning that hitherto insightful editorials could offer was that “tomorrow will never be the same again”. So it seems that when news events have no context or precedent, the media steps aside and, like the general public, looks elsewhere to re-establish the certainties of day-to-day life.

Sam Gyimah is the Conservative MP for East Surrey

Tags: 9/11, Issue 35, Memorabilia, Sam Gyimah