09/11/2026
Remembering the horrors of 9/11 is important. It was not a natural disaster. It was not an accident. This was a deliberate and horrific attack on innocent Americans.
For all those who experienced September 11 up close, one debate remains extremely painful: that of the "jumpers," those men and women who, trapped in the towers, chose to leap into the void rather than face the flames and smoke.
It is estimated that there were more than 200 of them.
When the first falls began, American television directors and stars were confronted with a terrible question, live on air: should we show these images?
Some broadcast them in the first minutes, before deciding to stop showing them. The debate was intense.
It was no longer just about reporting what was happening, but about deciding, in a matter of seconds, how far the duty to inform could go in the face of the real-time filmed deaths of human beings.
Twenty-five years later, the debate resurfaces in a completely different form. On social media, these images are circulating again. Some believe that a generation that did not experience September 11 must see them to truly understand the horror of that day.
In the United States, the question of the "jumpers" remains one of the most sensitive topics in the memory of September 11.
And behind these images lies a journalistic question that, in itself, has not aged: what should we show live when a tragedy unfolds before our eyes? Where does the duty to bear witness end and the duty to protect the dignity of those who are dying begin?
