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Rose Arce was getting her morning coffee at the deli across
the street from her Greenwich Village apartment when she heard an enormous
roar emanating from farther downtown. Pulling her cell phone out of her pocket,
the veteran Cable News Network producer raced toward the chaotic scene at
the World Trade Center. From her cell and pay phones on the path down Sixth
Avenue, she provided some of the first live commentary both on the impact
of the planes into the twin towers of the World Trade Center and the subsequent
collapse of the skyscrapers.
Arthur Santana, a crime reporter at The Washington Post,
was driving to work when he heard radio reports about the deliberate crash
of the jumbo jet into the Pentagon. One of the first journalists on the scene
of the wreckage at the Pentagon, he spent the day in its parking lot and that
night in the inner courtyard, helping rescue workers search for bodies and
befriending those who had lost colleagues and loved ones in the fiery collision.
As David Handschuh drove along the West Side Highway to
the 9:30 a.m. graduate photojournalism class he teaches at New York University,
he noticed smoke billowing from lower Manhattan. He called the nearby offices
of the New York Daily News, where he is a staff photographer, and
headed toward the World Trade Center. There he photographed the previously
unimaginable, even for a veteran chronicler of horror: falling debris, flaming
buildings, body parts, images that to this day he has never shown another
human being. As a second plane slammed into the north tower, he snapped a
shot he still does not remember taking. As the first tower collapsed, a thunderous
wave of hot gravel and glass catapulted Handschuh an entire city block, trapping
him under a car. After rescue workers carried his unconscious body to safety,
he became trapped again in a deli as the second tower came down. Handschuh,
who broke his leg, was evacuated across the Hudson. He spent the rest of the
fall and winter recuperating from both the physical and emotional wounds he
sustained. His only regret: he had relinquished his camera in the chaos.
These courageous journalists were three of several hundred who faced enormous
challenges that day, most without any experience covering terrorism or even
the most rudimentary training or schooling. It was new terrain in part because
terrorism in the United States, such as the 1995 bombing of the Alfred P.
Murrah federal building in Oklahoma City, has been primarily domestic in origin.
Like rescue workers armed only with notebooks, journalists, in many cases,
raced to the scene without contemplating the danger they faced.
Each journalist faced distinct challenges. Arce, for instance, juggled her
journalistic duty to get the story and inform the public with concerns about
her own physical safety. She escaped the collapsing buildings in part because
police and fire officials ordered her to evacuate what would become known
as Ground Zero. It only dawned on her that she was in danger when she observed
rescue workers racing away from the site. At night, she returned home to a
residential neighborhood swarming with security and under a cloud of dust
and ash, the remnants of which would linger for months. Blocks away at St.
Vincent’s Hospital, friends and family of those believed to be trapped
in the towers when they collapsed kept vigil.
Santana never feared for his life. But he was faced with another ethical
dilemma. Should he inform Pentagon and police officials of his press credentials
and risk being expelled from the scene? After consulting with his editors
via cell phone, he decided that it was his obligation to display his Post
press pass. Instead of being sent packing after his revelation, Santana was
enlisted by officials to help with the search and rescue efforts. During the
long, exhausting ordeal, with fires raging all around, he befriended a middle-aged
man, Kenneth Foster, who watched the rescue efforts with a particularly acute
sense of dread. Foster’s wife Sandra had worked in the quadrangle of
the Pentagon that had taken a direct hit from the airplane. He had lost touch
with her since the impact. Santana’s remarkable inside story of Foster’s
struggle ended up on page one of the Sept. 13 edition of the Post.
Handschuh, meanwhile, relied heavily on family, friends and colleagues during
his recovery from wounds that were far more than physical. “As I turned
my camera lens on the flaming north tower, I realized that not all the debris
falling to the street was glass and metal,” Handschuh writes in his
essay on the ordeal, “A Lens on Life and Death.” “I can’t
begin to describe what it looked like as some chose to jump to their deaths
rather than confront the reality that they were about to be burned alive.”
In emergencies, the media serve as an alternative early warning system. The
world learned about the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center
and the Pentagon first through television, radio, and news sites on the Web.
The public turned to daily newspapers and newsmagazines to fill in the details
in special editions and provide second-day analysis.
Early live reports on the attacks were sometimes confusing and misleading
— predictable given the chaotic circumstances — contributing in
part to the panic that gripped the nation in the aftermath of the four hijacked
airliner crashes. Yet there were also extraordinary examples of media excellence,
with journalists risking their lives to inform the nation about the unfolding
crisis. The empathy they displayed went a long way toward humanizing the events,
leading to an outpouring of support and compassion for victims, their survivors,
rescue workers, and everyone affected by the atrocity.
“I was very aware that it was important when I was on the air that
I be calm and professional,” said NBC News correspondent Anne Thompson.
“The rest of the country was seeing this, and you didn’t want
to add to a sense of panic. You had to be in control that day; it was more
important than ever.”
This journalism curriculum is designed to outline the challenges, both professional
and psychological, confronting reporters and editors who find themselves in
the position of covering terrorism. Based on extensive interviews with journalists,
it suggests ways to cover those affected by terrorism with accuracy, sensitivity
and clarity. It discusses ways that terrorists have sought to use the media,
and how journalistic skepticism can prevent manipulation. It also reviews
interesting angles, stories and approaches to covering terrorism.
This curriculum also examines the impact upon journalists of internalizing
the images of both physical and emotional suffering described in their coverage.
Based on the latest clinical research about emotional responses to trauma,
it outlines some measures journalists are taking to reduce work-related distress
and possibly confront — and prevent — Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
(PTSD).
Finally, it traces steps media organizations are taking to prepare their
staffs to cover terrorism.
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Table of Contents