Two billion people – one-third of the human race – saw the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks within hours.

‘The tragedy unfolded in real time,’ said David Friend, director of creative development for Vanity Fair, to a crowd of students and professors gathered in the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications’ Joyce Hergenhan Auditorium Tuesday evening.

Friend compared the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy decades before when people did not see images of the event for days.

‘Then, people would say, ‘Where were you when you heard the news,” he said of JFK’s assassination.

‘Contrast that to the age of CNN and YouTube. The question is ‘Where were you when you saw it?” he said of Sept. 11.

The technological ability to broadcast breaking news instantaneously across the world is one of the main topics Friend discussed in a speech and conversation with Newhouse professor Joel Kaplan.

Friend, author of ‘Watching the World Change: The Stories Behind the Images of 9/11,’ also won an Emmy award for executive producing the CBS documentary ‘9/11.’

His journalism career has spanned all mediums. He previously served as director of photography for Life magazine. He established both Life’s and Vanity Fair’s Web sites and, as an editor at Vanity Fair, he helped reveal the identity of Mark Felt as the secret Watergate source, Deep Throat.

After discussing the changes technology has made to journalism, Friend focused his speech on his book, which looks into the images surrounding the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and the stories and people behind the photographs.

‘The book tries to tell human stories,’ he said, ‘and to support the idea that photography is a vital presence in our life.’

Friend showed the audience selected images discussed in his book, including video from a documentary filmmaker who coincidentally caught live footage of the first plane hitting the World Trade Center tower. In Friend’s opinion, the images of Sept. 11 should be seen and discussed, as hard as they may be to see.

‘Unless you see it at its worst,’ he said, ‘you sort of forget what was.’

Friend described the Sept. 11 attacks as the most widely documented breaking news event of all time. He emphasized the importance of the many people who saw the event happen before their own eyes.

The stories of Sept. 11 will be around for decades to come, he said.

‘The more we can go back for a source who witnessed the event,’ he said, ‘the clearer the account will be.’

During the conversation portion of the event, professor Kaplan asked Friend to share his experience with revealing the identity of Deep Throat.

‘Clearly Sept. 11 is the story of this generation,’ Kaplan said. ‘But the story of our generation was Watergate.’

Friend traced his own involvement with journalism to watching the Watergate events unfold during his childhood.

”All the President’s Men’ made me want to be a journalist,’ said Friend, referring to the story – appearing as a book and movie in the late 1970s – chronicling the reporting efforts of Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward. Their Washington Post articles eventually led to Nixon’s resignation.

Friend explained the lengthy process Vanity Fair underwent in revealing Felt’s identity in its pages: from the initial phone call from Felt’s lawyer to the story breaking in May 2005 after decades of secrecy.

Near the end, the discussion veered to a comparison of the Watergate era press to the press of today. Friend was critical of the current press, calling it ‘weak’ and ‘less gutsy.’

‘If Watergate were to happen today,’ he said, ‘Nixon would have gotten off.’

Friend attributed much of the weakness in today’s press to the conglomeration of media outlets, but also to a complacent society. ‘People should stand up for their beliefs,’ he urged the audience.

But Friend was most passionate about the importance of images and photographs in today’s world of journalism. He attributed the roots of news stories – such as the torture at Abu Ghraib and monks protesting in the streets of Myanmar – to images.

‘Abu Ghraib only happened because someone took pictures of it,’ he said.

Friend credited the Internet’s ability to allow any citizen to take part.

‘There is power in the hand of the individuals now,’ he said. ‘The world is watching.’

Published on October 16, 2007 at 12:00 pm