9/11: Trump apologists are everywhere; photog has bittersweet memories of attack

Cartoonist Michael Ramirez mixing images in commenting on the 16th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the deadliest on America soil. The title of his cartoon is "9/11-Never Forget."

From Brooklyn Heights, cartoonist Sean Delonas says "the real Twin Towers" were the police officers and firefighters who lost their lives trying to save others after the collapse of the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001.

 HACKENSACK, N.J.

By VICTOR E. SASSON

EDITOR

You'd think the reporters and editors of The Record, my local daily newspaper, would know why America is so divided 16 years after we swiftly came together to heal our wounds from the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

But in marking last Monday's anniversary, Columnist Mike Kelly wrote on Page 1 of the Woodland Park daily:

"In the months after the 9/11 attacks, the nation seemed remarkably united -- no 'red' or 'blue' states, just red-white-and blue America.

"But then, we sank back into our angry, divisive ways.... What happened?"

Kelly must have been kidding or maybe he was just desperate for something fresh to discuss in what was his third 9/11 column in three days (two Kelly columns ran on Sunday's front page and Opinion front).

Obama, Trump

I'll be glad to answer his question:

What happened, of course, was the election of our first black president, Barack Obama, in 2008 and his reelection in 2012.

What happened, of course, was New York billionaire Donald J. Trump's years-long campaign to demonize Obama as a Muslim who was born outside the United States, and, thus, allegedly was an illegitimate president. 

What happened, of course, were Republicans in Congress who vowed to oppose every Obama initiative, and the news media ignoring health care, the environment and other important issues to focus relentlessly on politics and partisan conflict and gridlock.

And what happened, of course, was Trump's 2016 presidential campaign of endless lies that swept him into office riding the greatest tide of racism and white supremacy since the Civil War.

Kelly, who was a persistent critic of Obama, ignores virtually all of that (1A and 6A in Tuesday's Record).

Again on Thursday, "Trump thrust himself back into the racial storms of Charlottesville," The New York Times reported, "repeating his charges that those resisting the neo-Nazis and white supremacists were as much to blame as the alt-right crowds who marched on the Virginia college town last month." 

A U.S. postage stamp used Thomas E. Franklin's famous photo.

Tom Franklin

Every anniversary of 9/11 must be bittersweet for Thomas E. Franklin, the onetime Record photographer who captured the iconic image of firefighters defiantly raising the American flag over the rubble of the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001.

Instead of winning the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News Photography, Franklin is listed as a finalist.

The Pulitzer, long the most prestigious award in journalism, went to the staff of The New York Times "for its consistently outstanding photographic coverage of the terrorist attack on New York City and its aftermath."

No one can know why Franklin lost, but the decision by editors against remaking the front page of The Record for his remarkable photo likely was a big factor.

On the biggest story The Record has ever covered, the editors -- including Frank Scandale and Vivian Waixel -- argued it would cost too much to tear up Page 1, so the photo ran on a back page of one of the sections of the paper on Sept. 12, 2001.

In doing so, they completely overrode Rich Gigli, the photography director at the time, who saw Franklin's photo as The Record's chance to publish a unique Page 1 image unlike what every other paper had.

What The Record and every other paper published on the front page the next day was the Twin Towers smoking after terrorists flew two commercial airliners into them.

How close was The Record to the story?

On Sept. 11, 2001, reporters and editors in the Hackensack newsroom only had to glance up from their computers and look out the large windows to see the ominous black column of smoke rising from the ruins of the World Trade Center in Manhattan.

Franklin is now an assistant professor at Montclair State University.

See: 2002 Pulitzer Prizes

Jimmy Margulies, who once was the editorial cartoonist at The Record, seems to be reaching here.

Cartoonist Joe Heller on the 9/11 anniversary debate over "Never Forget" or "Always Remember." A woman holding photos of victims says, "Actually, they're forever on my mind."

Thursday's paper

On Thursday, a front-page story on NJ Transit's "crazy funding" reported that "15 years ago," the state's mass transit agency began receiving $350 million a year from the state's general fund.

But by 2015, "that amount had dwindled to $33 million" (6A in Thursday's Record).

The reporter, Curtis Tate, doesn't identify Governor Christie as the culprit who slashed state aid to NJ Transit by more than 90%.

Slighted in death, too

As I noted last Sunday, Elaine D'Aurizio of Wayne was mistreated badly in her last years as a columnist and reporter at The Record, where she worked for more than 30 years.

Elaine, who left the paper in 2010, died on Sept. 6. She was 76.

She was the paper's first and so far only female news columnist, reporting and writing a column called Above and Beyond for about a decade. 

The column celebrated the heroics of first responders and ordinary people who risked their lives to save others during emergencies.

But Scandale, the editor at the time, stripped her of her column, and also took away the only columns written by black and Hispanic staffers.

$10,000 pay cut

Elaine's pay also was cut by $10,000 a year on the orders of then-Publisher Stephen A. Borg.

A couple of her former colleagues wrote condolences on NorthJersey.com that I published last Sunday.

But inexplicably, former copy editor/reporter Jay Levin agreed to send me a tribute to Elaine, but asked me to withhold his name, even though he worked with her and edited many of her columns.

He did use his name in writing a condolence that appeared on a Facebook page called "Bergen Record Cast of Characters," which is closed to the public, including readers of the paper who knew Elaine or her work.

Levin, who wrote expanded local obituaries for The Record, was one of about 50 reporters and editors laid off in March by Gannett Co., the paper's new owner. 

See: Male editors made life miserable

 for female columnist