NYCCAN, the group responsible for airing ads urging an investigation into the destruction of World Trade Center Building 7, has issued a statement applauding FOX News hosts Andrew Napolitano and Geraldo Rivera for their fair treatment of the subject and rebuking Media Matters and The Huffington Post for their biased coverage.

An excerpt from the statement:

On November 29, Media Matters published an article entitled, “9/11 Victim Families Criticize Judge Napolitano Comments,” in which four 9/11 family members were quoted as attacking Judge Napolitano, without a single mention of the more than one-hundred 9/11 family members from NYC CAN who share Napolitano’s skepticism. One family member quoted in the article went as far as to say, “Anybody who talks about that is obviously not a family member and just trying to stir the pot and cause controversy.”

We who lost loved ones on that day cannot stand idly by as our honest search for the truth about their death is trampled upon. We demand that Media Matters apologize for its unfair, irresponsible and injurious coverage of this deeply sensitive issue.

Media Matters, which claims to “monitor, analyze and correct” right wing “misinformation” in the US media, has regularly portrayed 9/11 truth as a right-wing extremist cause.

Media Matters is the recent recipient of a one million dollar donation from financier George Soros.

__________________

NEW YORK CITY — Today, the New York City Coalition for Accountability Now (NYC CAN), a group of family members of those killed in the 9/11 attacks, issued the following statement:

We who lost our loved ones on September 11, 2001 vigorously applaud Judge Andrew Napolitano and Geraldo Rivera for the courage they have shown in publicly questioning the official claim that the collapse of World Trade Center Building 7 was due to fire.

In the week since Judge Napolitano aired his views on Building 7, many voices in the media have singled him out for attack while conveniently ignoring the sequence of events that led to his revelation and the overwhelming evidence that validates his concerns.

This past month, on TV screens across the New York Metropolitan Area, millions of viewers have been seeing footage of Building 7′s collapse for the first time ever. This is because we took it upon ourselves to produce and appear in a TV ad to draw attention to the fact that more than 1,300 architects and engineers publicly join us in challenging the official explanation that Building 7 came down due to fire. We were fortunate enough that Geraldo Rivera saw our ad and invited our representatives to appear on Geraldo At Large. There they presented the irrefutable evidence that Building 7′s collapse could not have resulted from fire as the government claims. Geraldo Rivera then appeared on Freedom Watch with Judge Napolitano to discuss our campaign and express his doubts about Building 7. The following week, Judge Napolitano courageously voiced his own opinions on this matter.

However, you would not know anything about our position if you are getting your information from outlets like Media Matters and the Huffington Post. On November 29, Media Matters published an article entitled, “9/11 Victim Families Criticize Judge Napolitano Comments,” in which four 9/11 family members were quoted as attacking Judge Napolitano, without a single mention of the more than one-hundred 9/11 family members from NYC CAN who share Napolitano’s skepticism. One family member quoted in the article went as far as to say, “Anybody who talks about that is obviously not a family member and just trying to stir the pot and cause controversy.”

We who lost loved ones on that day cannot stand idly by as our honest search for the truth about their death is trampled upon. We demand that Media Matters apologize for its unfair, irresponsible and injurious coverage of this deeply sensitive issue. And we call upon other voices in the media to follow the lead of Geraldo Rivera and Judge Napolitano, who have so courageously begun to question our government’s scientifically bogus explanation for Building 7′s collapse.

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Granted, that media was Fox News host Geraldo Rivera, who in a former iteration ran a Jerry Springer-like daytime talk show.

Still, at the end of his serious-yet-brief treatment of questions surrounding the collapse of World Trade Center 7 (WTC 7), Rivera admitted that the activists had made him “much more open minded” about questions surrounding 9/11.

And all it took was the proper message.

That message, which was playing in 30-second bytes on screens all around New York City, does not focus on conspiracy theories. It does not feature hip-hop beats in the background or winded, red-faced protesters dressed in black shouting at reporters. It doesn’t even mention President George W. Bush, former Vice President Dick Cheney or the systemic failures in America’s air defenses.

Instead, it puts the spotlight on people who lost family members in the 2001 attacks. Patriotic background music plays as viewers are gently reminded that not two, but three buildings collapsed on 9/11.

“Although the official explanation is that fire brought down building seven, over 1,200 architects and engineers have looked into the evidence and believe there’s more to the story,” they say.

Then they implore viewers to help them seek justice, for their families, simply by visiting a web site: buildingwhat.org.

Their campaign’s name, “Building What?” was allegedly taken from the response offered by New York Supreme Court Justice Edward H. Lehner, when asked if he knew about WTC 7.

Watch:

“Up until now, only those considered nutjobs questioned the official conclusion, that office fires caused by the nearby catastrophe of the towers collapsing brought down building number seven,” Geraldo said before introducing his guests.

Cue a clip of Rosie O’Donnell.

“If explosives were involved,” he continued, “that would mean the most obnoxious protesters in recent years … were right.”

Geraldo called the new television ad “not so easy to dismiss as those demonstrators were.”

The ad is being sponsored by donations to the groups New York City Coalition for Accountability Now (NYC CAN), Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth (AE911) and others. They’re calling for the New York City council to launch an investigation into the collapse of building seven.

NYC CAN, a nonpartisan association of over 100 9/11 family members, is the same group behind a 2009 ballot initiative requesting a new 9/11 investigation. It secured more than enough support to qualify for the ballot but the city ultimately blocked it from going before the voters, citing improperly collected signatures.

At time of this writing, AE911 said it had among its members, “1,346 verified architectural and engineering professionals who have put their professional reputations on the line to publicly voice their disagreement with NIST’s findings.”

One of Geraldo’s guests, Bob McIlvaine, whose son was killed on 9/11, also appeared in a longer, web-exclusive ad released in March after the delivery of a petition and information packets to members of the New York City council.

“What caught my eye was their claim that 1,300 architects and engineers examined the evidence about building seven’s collapse and disagree with the official report by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).”

NIST’s report, released years after the 9/11 Commission Report, ostensibly proved the “new phenomenon” of thermal expansion bringing down a steel frame structure. The scientists added that their findings made them worry numerous other structures could be prone to the same style of collapse.

In spite of their conclusions, the only three skyscrapers are known to have officially collapsed from hydrocarbon fires weakening steel supports, and all of them fell on Sept. 11, 2001.

Oddly enough, that same day the BBC reported that building seven had fallen some 23 minutes before it went down and featured a reporter speaking about the third dose of tragedy even as the tower remained standing behind her. Discovery of the mistaken and ill-timed reportage has since fueled talk of an international conspiracy, but the network has adamantly denied allegations that it received advance notice of the collapse.

Tony Szamboti, a mechanical engineer who appeared on Fox News with McIlvaine, explained that “Building seven came down, went into a sudden collapse across the full width and length of the building, for 2.25 seconds, which amounted to 105 feet or eight stories, eight 13-foot-tall stories — it was in full free-fall acceleration. That is impossible because, in a natural collapse, columns would have to buckle. When columns buckle, there is a minimum resistance. … It would slow down.”

“What are you suggesting brought it down?” Geraldo asked.

“I’m suggesting there was some form of demolition devices in that building,” he replied. “… I’m not saying I know what it is. I’m saying that it was at freefall acceleration and the NIST admitted to that.”

Geraldo agreed that it looked like a structure “being demolished by the professionals who can actually collapse a building right into its own footprint”.

“Why do you think they’re lying about it?” he asked, inviting his guest to speculate.

Szamboti didn’t take the bait.

“I don’t really know all the details of why they’re lying about it,” he said, affirming his position without dipping into the conspiratorial nature of the various 9/11 theories. “I can’t read their minds. All I can say is, scientifically, it’s impossible for fire to have done what we say.”

Geraldo said the new NYC CAN campaign and the serious individuals behind it had made him “much more open minded” about 9/11 activism.

This video was broadcast by Fox News on Saturday, Nov. 13, 2010.

The post Geraldo: "Much More Open-Minded" About 9/11 appeared first on 9/11 Truth News.

Rivera, who told a rowdy crowd of 9/11 activists to “get a life” two years ago, seemed very supportive of the call for an investigation and closed the segment by saying “It’s an intriguing topic. I certainly am much more open-minded about it than I was and it’s because of the involvement of the 9/11 families and all these engineers and architects”.

The segment from Geraldo At Large:

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