In times of crisis, journalists want to be where the story is. It’s instinct for most of us. We hardly ever talk about it, but our spouses know it. So do our children and our closest friends, who probably haven’t seen many of us over the last few days.
We go wherever we need to go — whether it is the scene of the disaster hundreds of miles away, a church sanctuary on the other side of town or simply a floor away to the main newsroom — to produce written and graphic images of the shared experience we know our readers expect us to bring to them.
It is that instinct that turns a fashion reporter on assignment in New York into a street reporter talking with police and victims.
It brings a sports editor to the national desk to coordinate coverage that has nothing to do with games and everything to do with tragedy. It moves copy editors and page designers to double and triple the demands placed on them and willingly produce hundreds of additional columns of news.
In my 30 years in the business I’ve watched this transformation unfold dozens of times as fellow journalists document deadly acts of nature and deadly acts of men.
At each point — almost as if there is an internal button that snaps into the “on” position — the newspaper’s reporters, photographers, graphic artists, page designers, copy editors, researchers, clerical assistants, editors and managers drop what they are doing, come together in a unified mission and start the process of producing history for the next day.
They are supported by hundreds of people outside the newsroom who reorganize work schedules, reconfigure advertising space and create plans down to the minute for making sure when the papers come off the constantly rolling presses, they get them into the trucks in time to get to the carriers, who get them to you.
And when they finish one of these cycles, they turn around a few hours later and do it again.
The events of last Tuesday are hard to quantify in a historical context. Yet there is no doubt that they are already seen as a turning point for the nation and the world, far greater than an act of nature or the work of one disturbed criminal.
Capturing the events of this week — and continuing to cover the aftermath in the weeks to come — is possible through the hard work of hundreds of journalists here who started as the first reports out of New York on Tuesday morning began to unfold.
The Tuesday afternoon Journal sold nearly 65,000 additional copies, including a special Extra edition that hit the streets around 4 p.m. The Wednesday Constitution sold 122,000 additional copies; followed by an additional 127,000 copies of Wednesday’s Journal. They are virtually all gone. (Two special commemorative sections will be printed Sunday, and will include reproductions of Tuesday’s and Wednesday’s front pages. The Sunday paper will also include a reproduction of Mike Luckovich’s Wednesday cartoon.)
Since the crisis we have received dozens of calls from readers thanking the newspaper and ajc.com for keeping them informed. One gentleman said he had watched television all day Tuesday and hadn’t expected to get much new out of the next day’s paper.
“But you didn’t let me down,” he said. “Besides being wonderfully informative, you provided an emotional feel to the coverage of the tragedy that helped me deal with it and made me want to somehow get involved. Thank you.”
The journalists working here are certainly not heroic figures like the firefighters in New York, or the young men and women who will probably be called upon soon to defend our country from further attack. Far from it. But they recognize the important role they play as individuals and part of a larger team effort. I know. I have worked closely with them and, at times, have had the privilege of leading many of them. I am proud to represent them and their work to you.
As they have proven again this week, you can count on them.
