I was looking for a photo of the current state of progress in building the Freedom Tower a few minutes ago. So I simply Googled “Freedom Tower” and hit the “Images” tab expecting to find a lot of shots by New Yorkers that showed the building in various stages of it’s construction. But what was returned as a result in the first page shocked me. Out of over 25 million photos, the shot in question is displayed ninth. Here’s the screenshot of the Google results:
Google images results for Freedom Tower. The seventh picture, third in from the left in the second row, shows the Freedom Tower smoking, and depicts an airliner approaching.
I held my nose and clicked through to a site called “News’N’Sh*t” that is still hosting the image:
The photoshopped image of the tower under attack, captioned, “Rendering of how the new world trade center freedom tower will look when completed” as currently hosted at newsnsh*t.com
I am so far beyond disgusted, I need to take a shower.
[Added 9-11-12 7AM Pacific:] With the Anniversary of the 9-11 Attacks upon us, this article is getting a lot of traffic. So I have questions for you visitors: Should I remove this article to avoid giving the disgusting photo further exposure? Should I do some investigation and see about finding the “Artist” who created it and finding out why? If you have an opinion, please share it by visiting my “About” page and letting me know in the contact form.
Meanwhile, The Blaze has a nice time-lapse video of the Freedom Tower’s construction.
On the anniversary of the attacks, we are mindful of the lives lost on that day, of the heroes who, without hesitation, jumped in to help, and passengers who made the ultimate sacrifice to take down one of the planes. I am humbled by the response of the hundreds (thousands) of people who were there. And I am grateful that our Nation values freedom and liberty in a world where those concepts are not so common as we would like to believe.
[Added 9-11-12 12 Noon Pacific:] There has been an overwhelming response to my request for feedback. Thank you very much for sharing your thoughts on this photo. Emotions are very much on the surface today, which is not unexpected. I have received a few requests to remove the universally despised photo. But by a 9-to-1 margin (at the moment) people want to know who created it, and more importantly why. As a result I’m making inquiries and will report what I find. If you can help, please don’t hesitate to contact me.
[Added 10-26-12 6:30AM Pacific:] Multiple requests for information or comment have yielded no response. (But would you respond to someone identifying themselves as “Darth Chipmunk?”) I’m not an investigative journalist, so I’m not sure what my next steps should be (or even if there are next steps). If you have suggestions, don’t hesitate to contact me.