
On September 11, 2001, America was under attack by Al-Queda, an Islamic extremist group that hijacked American planes. The hijackers were able to board four planes to carry out a suicide mission. Two planes crashed into the Twin Towers, one plane into the Pentagon, and the last plane crashed into a field in Pennsylvania. The total number of casualties from the attacks rests at more than three thousand fellow Americans. This tragic event opened the eyes of Americans and changed the future of our nation. The attack highlighted the lack of airport security, which was the primary vulnerability it exploited. Security needed to be enhanced in order to identify potentially dangerous passengers. The two major US news broadcasting stations, USA Today and PBS, a scholarly article, published recent articles that discuss preventable attack on US soil, relating to 9/11. 

The article “10 Things You May have Forgotten about 9/11” by Ray Locker and “9/11 to Now: Ways We Have Changed” by Jason Villemez are related to each other due to the topic of September 11. The article “10 things you may have forgotten about 9/11” discussed the hijackers’ motives and what America could have done to prevent the attack. The answers to these questions are based on theories because most of the primary evidence has been destroyed. The article “9/11 to Now: Ways We Have Changed,” describes the change of security after the incident. I found these two articles interesting because both included a video. The videos are a great way for readers to follow along while reading the article. The articles are a great secondary source, while the video/pictures are a great primary source. The video/picture is highly graphic and could trigger Americans to feel emotions from the tragedy on September 11th, 2001. The visuals create a strong sense of pathos that triggers the audience, unlike the words in the articles. The meaning behind the visuals plays a vital role in depicting the tragedy during the moment of impact.

The USA Today article “10 Things You May have Forgotten about 9/11” summarizes the event as a whole in the beginning of the article. Then ten points strongly emphasize what made the situation so deadly. The ten points are: questions arose on how the hijackers got into the cockpits of some of the planes; there is no evidence of the exact answer because the evidence has been destroyed in the crash; the planes carried light loads meaning that the planes were not as full; one plane that was headed towards Washington DC crashed in a field because of missing hijackers; the Vice President ordered United 93 be shot down; earlier plots also targeted commercial aircraft; The U.S. worked on multiple attempts to kill Osama bin Laden before 9/11; the CIA warned President Clinton about hijackings in 1998; Saudi Arabia had multiple ties to the hijackers. 

The PBS article “9/11 to Now: Ways We Have Changed” provides ways of preventing a repeat after the 9/11 attack. Security precautionary measures have been put in place on air travel. Congress has passed The Aviation and Transportation Security Act. This means that the budget on security defense and air travel has increased in fares in an attempt to provide security for the citizens of America. In addition to this act, many other bills and acts have been put in place for safety. 

The two articles correlate to each other because they are about the attack on September 11, 2001. However, the difference between these two articles is that the first article lists the information prior to the attack. The second article talks about how government actions have been put in place to stop these inhumane actions. A major similarity would be the fact that the first article states that the hijacker was an Islamic extremist. The result from this fact is shown in the second article stating how “28 crimes committed in 2000 were found to be anti-Islamic. In 2001, that number jumped to 481, and it remained above 100 in subsequent years” (Villemez). For every cause in the first articles the effect is shown in the second article. These similarities and differences are shown from different perspectives. Therefore, it is hard to compare and contrast the two articles because they are written about different periods of time. However, the readers can agree that implementing airport security would prevent future attacks. The government actions in the second article prevent problems in the first article. The results in these safety precautions lead to a rise in budget.

The way the two authors construct the article is fairly different from one another, making them unique. The difference in the articles is to target their intended audience. One who might read “10 Things You May Have Forgotten about 9/11” could spark interest in the incident about September 11, but does not want to read an intensive long research paper about the attack. Instead, this article provides a gist of the incident. One who might want to read “9/11 to Now: Ways We Have Changed” could be someone that experiences aerophobia and is about to board a plane, but wants some comfort knowing that it will be okay. The authors focused on different interests. I noticed that the first article did not mention Islamic extremist instead replaces that word with hijacker. This could mean that the author of the first article was less politically correct than the second article.  Trying to find the similarities and differences in both articles was difficult. The articles are different, however, there are links within both to prove the point that security is the main role within the texts.

In addition to my essay, I had to select a secondary scholarly article on the attack. I choose the article “A National Survey of Stress Reactions after the September 11, 2001, Terrorist Attacks” by Mark Schuster. I noticed that within all the three articles that the first few paragraphs summarizes the event. However, they differ because the authors explain the event differently. The USA Today and PBS describes the event in an active voice unlike the scholarly article. The scholarly article was presented in a more formal passive voice. “We surveyed a nationally representative U.S. sample to determine the immediate reactions of adults to the attacks and their perception of their children’s reaction” (Schuster). The reason for this could be that the Schuster wants the readers to take his statistics in a serious form. This scholarly article is related towards Villemez’s article.. The two articles are able to provide statistical elements of the incident. Villemez’s article studied the budget usage, while Schuster’s article was on the stress of Americans after the incident. The similarity of statistical evidence between the two articles represents reliable information for the reader.
