I wouldn't have been so annoyed about the Charlie Booker piece if it's timing hadn't obviously been prompted by the recent BBC '3rd Tower' program which was also pretty useless and distorted as a piece of journalism.
The main part of the program was based around the testimony of 'key witness' Barry Jennings who was trapped in WTC7 for 3 hours that morning. Part of his story includes claims that there were large explosions in the building before either of the other towers had collapsed. In fact one of those explosions caused a stairwell he was standing on while trying to leave the building to collapse. He was eventually rescued by the fire service.
What the program didn't once mention was that Barry Jennings was not alone in the building or indeed on that collapsed stairwell during that time. With him was New York City's Corporate Council, top lawyer and close associate of then Mayor Rudolph Guiliani*, Michael Hess. In fact the program went to such lengths so as not to mention Hess's name that in his interview as it is edited, Jennings' mysteriously goes from being 'I' to talking about 'we' with no explanation whatsoever.
The 47 story building was otherwise empty of occupants that morning as it had already been completely evacuated just before Jennings and Hess had arrived at around 9.00am.** Evacuated, despite the fact that this was the building that housed, among other interesting features, the reinforced bunker-like Office of Emergency Management designed to coordinate response to events such as terrorist attacks in New York City. Evacuated, unlike the two larger towers where many hundreds of people were still being advised to remain in their offices, until as we know it was too late.
So why wasn't this other key witness interviewed, or even mentioned? One thing that can be said about Michael Hess is that he isn't really one for media freedom. In an earlier life back in 1971 as Chief of the Civil Division of the United States Attorneys Office, he had
opposed in court the New York Times' publication of what became know as
The Pentagon Papers. Interesting guy. But yes I know, just another irrelevant detail.
* According to Jennings, Hess was there to meet with Giuliani who had been there earlier that morning.
** They were themselves telephoned by an unidentified party and told to leave shortly after arriving at the OEM on the 23rd floor.