THE COVERAGE

Media drew nation together in tragic thrall

By Don Aucoin and Suzanne C. Ryan, Globe Staff, 9/12/2001

Newspapers across the country published extra editions yesterday afternoon, including this one in San Francisco, which stated the sentiments on many Americans.

ll day and into the night, the TV images kept coming, searing and chilling at once.

There was the stunning sight, seen live across the nation, of an airplane inexorably veering toward the World Trade Center, then crashing into it and exploding into a fireball. There was the massive cloud of smoke hanging over New York City, followed by another plume of smoke issuing from the Pentagon in Washington, D.C.

A man rushing down a Manhattan street, a baby in his arms, their mouths and noses covered with gauze masks. Panicky staff evacuating the White House. And finally, as a jolting climax to a morning like no other, viewers watched live as first one, then the other World Trade Center tower collapsed in a sickening cloud of dust and ash.

The proud skyline of Lower Manhattan, immortalized and gleaming in so many movies and television shows, had been strangely disfigured.

The sense of crisis gripping the nation was reflected on television, which again served as a communal medium after years in which the proliferation of channels had fragmented the audience. In homes and offices, all activity stopped as Americans were transfixed by the drama.

The attacks seemed destined to join the assassination of John F. Kennedy in 1963 as one of those moments when everyone remembers where they were when they heard the news.

As they have for such other national traumas as the 1986 Challenger explosion, the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, and the 1999 shootings at Columbine High School, the networks mobilized for saturation coverage that included interviews of witnesses and experts. Even channels like MTV and ESPN set aside music and sports in favor of coverage of the attacks.

Boston stations kept local cut-ins to a minimum until midafternoon, then took an increasingly large role amid news conferences by a Massachusetts Port Authority officials, Governor Jane Swift, and the brother of John Ogonowski, the pilot of one of the planes that hit the World Trade Center.

Newsgathering was inevitably chaotic. After relating one bit of news, ABC's Peter Jennings candidly suggested that viewers ''treat it as you should all the information we give you today, as preliminary at best, sometimes wrong.''

At times, as one disaster followed another, news anchors and reporters seemed as much like shaken citizens as journalists. The voice of CNN's Aaron Brown trembled slightly as he declared that ''what has happened is not simply a series of attacks, but something much larger.'' At midmorning yesterday, NBC's Katie Couric expressed amazement at ''this horrific, incredible, not-to-be-believed Tuesday morning.''

But soon, the coverage moved beyond incredulity to questions from the news media about how the attackers could have overcome security measures.

By 9:45 a.m., CBS's Bryant Gumbel was describing events with utter starkness: ''It would seem the United States is under terrorist attack on this day.'' At 10:15 a.m., NBC's Tom Brokaw called it ''a devastatingly efficient attack on our country.'' By 11 a.m., CNN was using a logo over its coverage that read: ''America Under Attack.'' CBS followed suit shortly thereafter with ''Attack on America.''

Newspapers around the country also reacted quickly. The Washington Post released a special edition around 2:30 p.m. in which 10 to 12 pages of its first section were updated. The Post printed 50,000 copies of this edition, and distributed them at subway stations and stores. The Post last published a special edition during the 2000 presidential election, a spokesman said.

The Los Angeles Times devoted eight pages to the crisis, which it wrapped around yesterday's first section. It printed 25,000 copies, which were distributed in the afternoon to high-traffic commuter sites and retailers. A spokesman said the Times last printed such a section in 1995, after the verdict in the O.J. Simpson case.

The Boston Globe printed two extra editions yesterday. About 18,000 copies of the first version, with five pages devoted to the attacks, were distributed by noon to train stations, hotels, T stations, and high-traffic areas such as Harvard Square. About 6,000 copies of the second edition, with nine pages of coverage, were printed by 2 p.m. The Globe last published an extra edition in February 1991, when Iraq announced it would leave Kuwait.

The Boston Herald also put out an extra.

With people hungry for instant information, Web sites reported unprecedented traffic.

The Los Angeles Times reported demand for its Web site, latimes.com, was extremely heavy. And the Globe's Web site, boston.com, reported 6.5 million page views yesterday, more than twice its previous high of 3 million. The Globe's average page views are 2 million a day.

As early as 9:25 a.m yesterday, ABC's Jennings, the first of the leading network anchors to make it onto the air, was expressing the prevailing sense of disbelief and helplessness: ''Here we are in the heart of commercial America, and there was no warning whatsoever, no intelligence whatsoever.''

Shortly after 9:30 a.m., the networks broke away to Sarasota, Fla., for a statement from President Bush. CBS, ABC, and NBC employed a split-screen to show both Bush and the World Trade Center.

There were occasional glitches as TV raced to keep up. A clearly vexed Jennings ordered his control room to keep him apprised of which image viewers were looking at, adding pointedly, ''And may I not have to ask again.''

As the day, went on, network anchors were beginning to weigh the long-term consequences of this shattering day. Brokaw, on NBC, had a grim prognosis. ''We don't know if this is the end of it,'' he said, adding: ''This is going to change the country profoundly.''

This story ran on page A22 of the Boston Globe on 9/12/2001.
© Copyright 2001 Globe Newspaper Company.