If your taste runs to country music, you’ll be hearing a song called “Have You Forgotten?” a lot on the radio over the next couple of days.
Released in mid-2003, the song criticizes complacency in the aftermath of the terrorist attack that took down the World Trade Center. Singer-songwriter Darryl Worley notes that the footage of the towers falling doesn’t show up on his TV anymore because it is too “disturbing” and will “breed anger,” then defiantly says, “If it was up to me, I’d show it every day.”
Well? Would you? I’d bet not — not most of you.
This week is different, of course. It’s anniversary week. So you saw images of the attack in yesterday’s Plain Dealer. It’s the main story today, and it will dominate Page One tomorrow, on the fifth anniversary of the day the towers fell. Is that too much? Not enough? Each reader will have his or her own answer.
I’ve mentioned here before that I’m no fan of anniversary stories. I think that generally they’re manufactured news, a turn of the calendar page their only reason for existence. But they can be good for providing perspective, and readers have come to expect — demand, actually — an acknowledgment of certain anniversaries. That certainly includes the five-year anniversary of the most horrific event in recent history.
Not all readers feel this way, of course.
For some people, the memory of Sept. 11, 2001, is so painful and shattering that they never want to see the images from that day again.
The day struck others with a fear they still can’t shake, and they also don’t need or want any reminders.
I’m with Worley who wants to use the memory to keep his anger fresh and the country’s resolve strong. But that doesn’t make the other points of view any less legitimate.
So where does that leave The Plain Dealer? How do we, on the fifth anniversary of the day the towers fell, present a newspaper that will resonate with all three groups and everyone in between?
The answer, as always, is that we can’t. But here’s how editors tried:
“I didn’t want to overwhelm people,” Managing Editor Tom O’Hara said, “and I didn’t want to retell the story of that day. I wanted us to have something that would bring the story home to our readers.”
Deputy Metro Editor Clara Roberts, who directed the local coverage of the anniversary, said the goal was to tell the story in a way that other media wouldn’t, approaching it as a look ahead rather than a look back. So her reporters checked in with Northeast Ohioans who had lost loved ones in the attack; interviewed people from the local Muslim community, who have been victims of the attack themselves in a far different way; and talked to local terrorism experts to see how their perspectives have changed since 2001. Monday’s Plain Dealer will feature interviews with people talking about how the events have changed them over the past five years.
“One thing that appealed to me was to try to look for some good that has come from this, such as scholarships that were set up in the names of some of the victims,” Roberts said.
Of course the prevailing memories most of us have from that day five years ago were the photos, which presented picture editors with a haunting challenge for the anniversary coverage. As it was happening, it was news. Today, it has a different feel.
“You look through these photos, and you feel almost like you’re trading on the misery of others,” said David Kordalski, the assistant managing editor for visuals.
He vividly remembers putting together a page of 120 victims that ran on the Sunday following the attack. “I like to think I’m a tough guy, but I had to stop several times to get myself together,” he said, pointing almost without looking at one of the faces, a young boy of about 10.
Picture editor Jeff Greene, who went through the archives to select the photos that are running with the anniversary coverage, had a similar reaction.
“I didn’t need to see all these photos again,” he said. “It’s like they’re still burned into my brain from the first time. It wasn’t easy.”
Obviously, Kordalski said, the anniversary coverage would not include the more horrific images of people jumping from the burning buildings and anguished rescuers digging in the rubble. Today’s coverage was planned to be more reflective. “Time and distance have helped, but we’re not yet to the point where we can look at it from a completely historical perspective,” he said.
Last month, when the government released the tapes of hundreds of emergency calls that victims made before the towers fell, the story appeared on Page One with a photo of the soot-covered remnants of the collapsed towers. I got phone calls from many people who said the images were too much. I’m expecting many more on Monday.
“A delicate dance,” Kordalski called the coverage decisions. I’ll be interested in what you think of how we did.
