Salon and Slate Magazines Confused Over 9/11 Facts |
Written by Victoria N. Alexander, Digital Journal | |||
Friday, 08 February 2013 00:07 | |||
By Victoria N. Alexander, Digital Journal “Unlike with Sandy Hook, 9/11 conspiracy theories flow from a scientific fact: whatever the 9/11 Commission Report might claim, fire generated by burning jet fuel is not hot enough to melt steel,” Salon immediately removed the article (rather than simply publishing a correction) and later published a retraction: "On Jan. 22, Salon republished an article from one of our content partners, the Weeklings, that was sympathetic to unfounded 9/11 conspiracies. The article slipped through our usual review process, and was clearly not up to our standards; we removed it as soon as it was brought to our attention by readers. Salon has a long history of debunking fringe conspiracists — around Sept. 11, and more recently, Sandy Hook — and are proud of those efforts. We regret this oversight." Jeremy Stahl of Slate magazine picked up the story, describing the debacle and adding: "In 2011, I wrote a history of the 9/11 conspiracy movement for Slate, and I can tell you that, no, this is not scientific fact, nor any other kind of fact. Salon feels the same way and has since pulled the article from its site ...." A couple of facts need to be reviewed here: Burning jet fuel does not generate enough heat to melt steel. Jet fuel burns at 800° to 1500°F. Steel melts at about 2750°F. No government report has ever made the claim that jet fuel can melt steel. The 9/11 Commission Report did not investigate the causes of the collapses of the towers. The primary focus of the 9/11 Commission Report was to describe how emergency responders dealt with the tragic events. In the Commission report there is one sentence about the collapse: "The building collapsed into itself, causing a ferocious windstorm and creating a massive debris cloud" (page 305). The report then goes on to discuss the information the Bush administration may or may not have had about Osama Bin Laden’s plan prior to 9/11. The investigation into the destruction of the towers was done later by National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). In their 2008 report, NIST claims that after the jet fuel burned off, burning office furnishings generated enough heat to weaken steel. NIST claims that the damaged, fire-weakened floors then started to collapse.
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