Like most of the world, I spent Tuesday watching the non-stop news coverage of the horrific attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington.

By the time I shut off the television at 10:30 p.m., I’d seen the two towers collapse more than a dozen times, seen the same shots of terrified, ash-covered survivors walking like zombies through lower Manhattan, seen the footage of cheering Palestinians over and over again, seen the same pundits on five or six different shows debate whether the culprit was Osama bin Laden.

Reporters kept calling the attacks surreal. But it was the coverage itself that was often surreal. Well-coiffed correspondents and anchors unsuccessfully attempted to convey the unspeakable horror of the attacks with endless, relentless talk and looped video footage. And when they were unable to fill the air, journalists soon turned to the ridiculous and trivial: What was the impact on New York’s fashion industry? How were the stranded tourists in Halifax coping? What does Tiger Woods make of all of this?

Still, we watched. We watched because it was horrible and frightening and because we desperately wanted to know what happened and how. But we also watched because as a culture of voyeurs, we feel we have a right to know, a right to impress ourselves upon this catastrophe, a right to see terrified people leaping to their deaths or exhausted rescue workers trying to find people in mountains of debris.

Yet when something did manage to convey the scale of the tragedy, it was something unseeable and unshowable, like New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani explaining that victims could be heard calling for help from under the rubble.

These dreadful events have revealed the best and worst of the mainstream press. On one hand, the incredible capacity to cover events as they unfold and to relay important information directly to the public; on the other, the incessant regurgitation and repetition of information, the endless talk that, in the end, didn’t say much at all.

In stark contrast was the diverse and often excellent coverage of the day’s events in the alternative media, almost all of it online and almost all of it focused on analysis, debate and challenging some of the quick assumptions being made. Addressing the widely held belief that bin Laden is responsible, the Independent Media Center reprinted a 1998 MSNBC story by Michael Moran that reveals bin Laden’s ties to the CIA. In the 1980s, Osama bin Laden was one of a multinational group of Islamic extremists armed by the U.S. in their war against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan.

Faisal Bodi, also on indymedia, analyzed the public addresses of President George W. Bush and Secretary of State Colin Powell. “They blamed extremists bent on damaging democracy and western civilizations. But much as the attacks on civilian structures might suggest otherwise, democracy is not the intended target here and neither is freedom. Inside America, the trade center, the Pentagon, Camp David and Capitol Hill are all seen as symbols of global U.S. power and prestige, of the triumph of democracy. Outside, in the Muslim world, they are popularly regarded as symbols of terror and oppression.”

Tom Ridgeway of The Village Voice lambasted Bush for “scurrying around the country in a transparent attempt to keep from being killed by terrorists, when he should be taking charge.” While Earl Ofari Hutchinson, writing for AlterNet, warned against instant assumptions of Muslim culpability: “The clamour by Bush and the Americans to hit even harder at the guilty will grow to a roar. But the guilty must not translate into anyone with an Arab face and a Muslim surname.”

Common Dreams posted comments from readers, many of them suggesting that instead of seeking revenge, America might be better off asking itself why it is hated so much and questioning its own isolationism and aggressive foreign policy. One man reminded readers that the Oklahoma City bombing that was initially blamed on Arab terrorists was the work of home-grown, white militia members. Another pointed out America’s mass murders of civilians in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Korea, Vietnam and Iraq.

Others feared a security crackdown that would erode civil liberties and turn the U.S. into a police state. Some said it was hostile American foreign policy come home to roost. And to that still another wrote: “As much as I despise the U.S.’s policies in general, too many seem to be content writing this tragedy off as if the tens of thousands of dead deserved it, simply because they’re American.”

New York-based contributor Laura Flanders posted her diary-like reports on WorkingForChange, including a scathing critique of Bush’s television address: “When he gave us clichés about the day’s events many of us were furious. We know what happened, we weren’t in a bunker, one (person) shouted.”

Otherwise, the usually lively site was almost blank, perhaps one of the most respectful responses to the tragedy yet. There was just a note from the editors offering their sympathies to all the victims and this declaration: “In an effort to keep clear heads and calm spirits, WorkingForChange will step back today and attempt to limit our own contribution to the cacophony.”