Like Goldilocks testing the porridge, The Times-Dispatch wanted to make certain its reporting was not too hot or too cold.
When the anthrax scare swept the nation, and particularly the East Coast, T-D editors and reporters were concerned that the reporting should inform but not inflame readers.
Complaints were heard from the public and journalism critics about the 24-hour media whipping up panic with unrelenting reports on the threat of “bioterrorism.”
Plenty of advice was offered on how to cover the fallout over the real anthrax attacks. The Poynter Institute in St. Petersburg, Fla., a media school that declares that it provides “everything you need to be a better journalist,” cautioned it was the responsibility of journalists “to share information without crying wolf.”
A seminar leader at Poynter, Al Tompkins, issued an eight-point checklist offered as a model for those covering the anthrax story.
“Journalists,” he wrote, “face the competing pressures of keeping the public informed of important developments while not scaring the public about hoaxes or overplaying incidents of anthrax threats.”
Among factors he suggested be considered:
Whether there is a threat to life and property . . . The significance of any evacuation and interruption to normal life in the community . . . The possibility that reporting a false threat might lead to copycat threats . . . A likelihood that repeated reporting about hoaxes or suspicious packages could result in a public less responsive when actual danger arises.
A general rule at the T-D is that when the newspaper makes a value judgment in deciding what to report each situation is weighed on its merits.
Editors and reporters discussing the anthrax reporting agreed coverage should be kept at a low-key tone when possible. However, the disruption of people’s lives couldn’t be ignored, said Andy Taylor, metro news editor.
Incidents of high visibility and public awareness, such as the evacuation of a post office or the appearance of a haz/mat (hazardous materials) team in protective gear, were a different matter. The public needed a place to turn – the newspaper – to find out whether a dangerous situation existed.
Thus the news staff decided to report anthrax scares in the manner that bomb scares are covered. Incidents would be reported that resulted in buildings being closed and workers being evacuated.
Since mid-October, calls in the Richmond metropolitan area to fire and police departments from persons who fear they have spied anthrax spores or other suspicious material total more than 1,000, area fire department spokesmen reported.
The T-D, though, had published reports of only 17 incidents – including one of a “suspicious” package and another of a hidden suitcase – through Friday.
Meantime, science reporter A. J. Hostetler and health reporter Tammie Smith kept readers well informed in 13 articles on such broad subjects as anthrax testing and treatment or doctors’ pleas for calm and caution.
While the reporting in the T-D on incidents has been subdued, calls from a worried public have not slacked off, said area fire officials.
“We’re now getting 18 to 20 calls a day on average,” said Henrico County Deputy Fire Chief R. C. Dawson Jr. last week.
In Chesterfield County, the calls go to the police and only those deemed credible are turned over to the Fire Department for a haz/mat team response, said Paul Shorter, deputy fire chief of operations in the county.
While the Chesterfield team has responded to only three calls in the last two weeks, the police have screened about 300 calls related to anthrax since mid-October, he said.
Capt. Alan Brooks, coordinator of the haz/mat team of the Richmond Fire Department, said he believes a public quick to report its suspicions is healthy.
“When the federal government says to be alert, people feel inclined to take that advice,” he said. “It’s important that we have an appropriate response [to their calls].”
Dawson doesn’t believe it’s time to lift one’s guard. “We’re still concerned we may get secondary contamination – mail contaminated by other mail,” he said.
Some Richmond area companies, he said, receive mail that has passed through a Washington post office that has been contaminated.
All three fire officials said that tests of all samples of suspected material from the Richmond area have proved to be negative.
That’s the good news in two months of grim news.
* * *
A reader unfamiliar with the term asked the question others also might want to have answered. “What is meant by ‘ground zero’? Is it a military term?”
Since Sept. 11, newspapers have carried frequent references to the World Trade Center and Pentagon attack sites as “ground zero.”
The term entered the language, Webster’s says, after the atomic bombing in World War II. The dictionary definition calls it “the point directly above, below or at which a nuclear explosion occurs.”
“Ground zero” is further explained as “the center or origin of rapid, intense, or violent activity or change.”
While I could find no etymology on the origin of the term, its relationship to warfare suggests it emerged from military use. At the least it probably is a first cousin to “zero hour,” the time established for the start of a military attack.
I’ll be happy to hear from real authorities on this one.
