Media, News & Trust

[LovelyLadyLux]

Simply - Do you trust the News Media? Do you believe the "news" that is presented to you and how do you decide what "news" to believe?

Are you aware of Media bias and do you automatically incorporate it into own view of a news issue?

[Horus]

The media certainly put a slant on how it is represented and often a political bias is evident especially with our newspapers. The TV will usually sensationalise just about anything to hype the viewing figures and often milk it for all they can get out of it, the last refugee invasion of Europe was a good example.

[Jayway]

No, I dont waste my time as I believe very little. What made me certain of my opinion was when the 9/11 tower fell down with a series of explosions, just like the demolition videos - - - I would rather watch the phone camera videos taken by people who are actually living in the problem areas.

[LovelyLadyLux]

I asked because lately I've been thinking a lot about what news I should opt to believe and what I should not believe. For years I had a tendency to believe more of what I read in the Newspaper as it seemed to be more factually presented but nowadays getting news on newsprint is usually old news by the time it arrives at the door.

The news here that is broadcast on TV doesn't tend to be sensationalized and moreso depending on which TV channel you're watching. Internet is providing immediate news on anything and everything and lastly in come the Newspaper.

Really hard to know anymore what the "truth" is - IF IF IF - there IS a true to anything anyway and then there comes 'nwes' from MY gov't that seems to change depending on how the first broadcast of it was taken by the people..........AHH what a complex web we weave.........

[Horus]

Jay I was interested in your reply, as an engineer I have no problem in explaining why the towers collapsed in that particular way, but I have to agree that many people see it as some sort of conspiracy and suggest that it must have been blown up or demolished, but I can assure you it was not

[LovelyLadyLux]

I don't believe the planes flying into the Twin Towers were a hoax however there are people who do believe this.

I'd be interested in hearing, from an engineering perspective, why it did seem there were a series of explosions going DOWN the Towers after they were crashed into by the planes.

[Horus]

LLL, it all to do with how these buildings are constructed. Most modern sky scrapers are constructed around a central core that is a lot smaller in cross section than the actual floor area of the building, these central ‘tubes’ are then used to house all of the building services like power, water, fire fighting systems, communications and of course the lifts.. At each floor level a steel structure attached to the central core projects outwards at 90 degrees from the central core, this forms the platform upon which the whole floor will sit. Now here is the important bit, all of the outside of the building is literally hung off this floor supporting structure, that means the walls and windows form very little of the actual strength of the building, unlike say the ‘Empire State’ building which was a steel frame outline of the building shape you see today. Have you ever wondered why so many modern building have so much glass? Take a closer look and you would see that there is nothing of any real strength to support the weight of all the levels above each other.

These central well shafts are of course extremely strong and under normal circumstances they would be more than adequate to withstand all the stresses and strains they may be subjected to. Unfortunately although they are designed to take the impact of a small aircraft hitting them they were never designed for the bizarre series of events that happened with the Twin Towers. There are huge steel sections incorporated in the central shaft and some distance out from it, these columns take the main strain and as a part of the fire design are always encased in concrete. Test have shown that under normal fire conditions they would easily retain their strength even though the building may be severely damaged. You will have observed that in the case of the Twin Towers the aircraft can be seen to literally disappear through the outer walls, this reinforces my statement about how relatively weak they are from a structural point of view.

The result is that the aircraft actually hit the central core area and most of the intense heat from exploding fuel was in that area. We cannot underestimate the enormous heat of such an explosion along with the physical damage to the overlaying cement protection of the steel structures. The result of this was to soften this supporting steel to a point when it started to buckle, it would not have been instantaneous, rather a slow compressing and twisting until the stresses became too much. This is the reason for the delay between impact and total collapse of the building.

Now for the interesting bit, if we assume for example that each floor weighs several thousand tons (for this purpose let us say 3000 tonnes) and as I have previously explained each floor is in effect sticking out from the central core with very little support around the outside, then the following will happen. Once the steel weakens enough to allow one floor to collapse down onto the one below you create an unstoppable chain of events. 3000 tonnes suddenly becomes 6000 tones, a weight that the supporting structure was never designed to support, so it too collapses, now we have 6000 tonnes collapsing onto the next level, then 9000 tonnes onto the next, then 12000 tonnes onto the next and so it goes at an increasing speed as seen in the Twin Tower collapse. Many other factors contributed to the event, but when you consider the amount of preparatory work that has to be done in order to demolish an empty building by removing supporting walls, exposing and cutting supporting steelwork and then placing tonnes of Thermic explosive charges to cut the remaining steelwork, all of which have to be set off in a certain pattern, then a conspiracy to blow them up becomes laughable.

[Jayway]

Horus , is this your own explanation ? Very interesting as I never knew any of this. Just saw the bang bang bang . . .

[LovelyLadyLux]

Thanks for the explanation H. I never ever knew any of this and it explains quite succinctly the events of the collapse of the Twin Towers.

I'm like Jayway that I saw them come down and it was a boom boom boom slow dance down as the building seemed to implode/explode onto and into itself. I never doubted the collapse was due to the plane flying into it I just never ever understood the dynamics of the collapse.

Great explanation and you've definitely enlightened me today - thank you!

[Horus]

Yes Jay it is my own explanation, but it is not unique inasmuch as the series of events are know to most people with an interest to know such as the investigation team. People love conspiracies and so when they see something that to them seems inexplicable, or in this case resembles a scheduled demolition, then their minds run riot. You must also take into account that Bin Laden himself was a qualified engineer and although I doubt if he expected the result it achieved in collapsing both towers, he certainly knew that it would cause serious damage and that a large aircraft would easily penetrate the outer structure of the building. Had for example the aircraft hit several stories higher the domino effect probably would not have happened. Like the Kennedy assassination and the Moon landings, many people would rather believe in a conspiracy or a cover up that in itself would be much harder to achieve if only they thought about it, than to believe the real series of events actually happened.

[Robbo70]

I remember being in Egypt during the revolution and my mother ringing me in a blind panic every other day usually just after watching the 6pm news. I kept reassuring her it was not that bad and certainly in Luxor, rather quiet. When I flew back, I flew into London and had a few days in a hotel and showed Omar the sights etc. I put the 6pm news on, and hell it looked the whole country was in anarchy and burning to the ground. I could understand why my mam had got so wound up. BBC buy their news off Jazeira which we had ignored whilst in Luxor for being so biased and pro MB. I could fully understand why friends and rellies thought I mad to be there.

[LovelyLadyLux]

Really is very hard to know what IS the truth when you see it on the News. They're in it for the hype and what isn't actually happening can, I'm sure, be manufactured (and often is) to make a so-so situation seem like the second coming!