Horror. Anger. Grief. Frustration.
Hope. Resolve. Patriotism.
Tears. Fears.
Prayers.
Strong reactions swept the nation after Tuesday’s terrorism.
Journalists were not immune.
When their community suffers, they suffer.
Amid the news-gathering Wednesday, I asked Register journalists to express their feelings.
Marla Fisher is a veteran reporter and no stranger to tragedy.
“I was interviewing a student at Cal State Fullerton about how she was affected by the terrorist events, and she started crying. I started crying, too,” she said.
“At times of crisis, after covering many disasters, many of which affected me more personally than this one, I am terribly grateful that I have the chance to do productive work and at least bring people the information they want to have about how it’s affecting their lives. It helps me bring order to my universe that has been so disrupted by the disaster.
“There is also a special quality to being in a newsroom filled with other people, also trying to bring the news and events to our readers. The mutual sharing of tragedy helps us to cope with it. …
“It was interesting, too, because often you find macabre humor in a newsroom, which is our way of coping with the tremendous amount of sadness we write about every day. But yesterday, the newsroom was frantically busy but also solemn. It was the first day I’ve ever been here in seven years that I didn’t hear one joke cracked. Everyone was suffering, too.”
Nor is death unfamiliar to Robin Hinch, who writes “life stories,” about recently deceased Orange County residents.
“I was terrified. It is my worst nightmare. … Somehow, it’s the thing I’ve always felt safe from — until Tuesday.
“I had just gotten up, padded into the kitchen to make my lunch to take to work, when I noticed I had a message. It was from Lori Basheda, who works for me, saying that we were at war and she wasn’t coming to work because she wanted to stay home with her 3-year-old daughter, Clara. I thought she was joking.
“I went to the living room and turned on the TV, and there it was. …
“I went to the ATM and got cash. I filled my car with gas. I resisted stocking up on canned goods. I never did make my lunch.
“Concentrating to write a story was terribly difficult. I just wanted to call all my friends and relatives, make sure they were OK. I still feel extremely uneasy. It’s not business as usual. Everything I do seems frivolous — that I should be doing SOMETHING that would make a difference in all this. But what would I do? I can and will give blood.
“I’m still terrified.”
Pat Brennan covers environmental news:
“Normally, I’m pretty successful at cultivating detachment from disasters (while feeling what I hope is a decent amount of sympathy). I also by nature have a strong revulsion toward people who, after such events, immediately begin calling for violent retaliation. But after this event I found myself on the other side of both of those fences.
“First, detachment seemed impossible. It was replaced with a strong sense of anger and helplessness. Then, I began to hope that U.S. forces would very quickly determine who was responsible and utterly destroy them. This did not feel like a ration al impulse. I did not seem to care whether the responsible parties were given adequate due process; I simply wanted to see them meet a violent death.
“I also have a sense of a tremendous loss of innocence, not only for this country but for the world.
“The effect of this on our country, I feel sure, will be as powerful as the attack on Pearl Harbor or the Kennedy assassination.”
Dena Bunis is the Register’s Washington, D.C., bureau chief:
“I must say that never was the realization of where I am living so clear to me as on Tuesday. It was more than the Humvees and National Guardsmen in the streets, the guard at the door of my office building checking our IDs, or the fact that I couldn’t even get close to the Capitol. There seemed to be a vulnerability of our nation that hit home hard when the Pentagon was hit.
“I had a double whammy because I’m first and foremost a New Yorker. … I think I was numb for most of the day. My adrenaline kicked in, and I spent the day trying to track down our members of Congress to see where they were when the unthinkable happened. I made it through most of the day until the leaders of the House and Senate gathered on the steps of the Capitol. … And when those lawmakers broke out into a spontaneous singing of ‘God Bless America,’ I’m afraid I lost it.”
Dan Wood, sportswriter:
“Like just about everyone else, I guess, I felt guilty that I couldn’t do something to help. I cover the Mighty Ducks, and it was the opening day of training camp. It seemed ridiculous to even be driving out to Disney Ice, under the circumstances, a feeling driven home even more when the first words out of new Ducks coach Bryan Murray’s mouth were ‘Hockey doesn’t seem very important today, does it?’
“I had both a human feeling of guilt that I couldn’t do something, as well as a professional sense that I should be doing something to really help the Register. … It just seemed like what I was doing was so trivial, even though my Ducks notebook for the day did focus on their reactions to the tragedy.”
Jane Glenn Haas, Maturing columnist and reporter:
“War. Horror. Real war. Right here.
“I was four. I am on a train with my mother, in a sleeping room, and we have stopped at a station. She raises the curtain because we hear noise outside the windows. And she screams. I could see it again. The platform is full of people. They are upset and they frighten me. It is Pearl Harbor Day.
“I grew up with war. My whole childhood. The music. The movies.
“I don’t want my grandchildren to grow up that way. I don’t want my grandchildren to be afraid. I don’t want any child to ever be afraid.
“And I am grateful — God help me — that my sons are too old to go to war.”
Chantal Lamers, south county community writer:
“I’m 25 years old, and have never felt this agonizing, uncertain pain about my country. Tuesday I feel unsafe. Wednesday I’m angry. But I can’t quite put my finger on it – on any of it. I’m also not sure how to express what I feel among a nation who has the same dilemma. For the most part, I feel like the generation I grew up in has lost something it never knew it had. But for the first time I also feel this genuine patriotism toward the United States.
“I spent a half-hour at a high school Tuesday, interviewing students. The bombings didn’t seem to faze many of them. They laughed, smiled and went on talking about things that shouldn’t have mattered at that particular moment. Why should they be bothered by crumbling, fiery buildings and people jumping to their death? We are a generation desensitized by movies and video games, and we’ve seen it all before.
“I don’t want to go to the gym or the grocery store. I don’t want to act like everything’s OK because I doubt it is. Things changed Tuesday in ways I can’t see quite yet.”
John McDonald, courts reporter:
“I spent 25 years working in New York and can’t begin to count the number of times I was inside the World Trade Center while reporting stories. My first thoughts were for those who I know who work in the area. …
“All night I kept waking up. Each time, my mind was filled with another trip I had made to the Trade Center. Most of these visits I had not thought about for years. … I do hope that soon the flashes of visits to the Trade Center go away. They bother me a lot.”
Andrew Tuttle, north county community reporter:
“I have spent three days fighting back tears. … Seeing American flags going up, people in prayer, people being interviewed about lost loved ones, seeing the president choke up. You remember these moments as you drive, eat and even when trying to fall asleep. And they always come with a wave of emotion that starts in your throat before bellowing in your eyes.”
Lyn Montagna, south county community editor:
“My mother and I are scheduled to go to New York City next month on vacation, and I’ve never been. We had talked about how cool it would be to have a drink at Windows on the World, the famous restaurant and bar at the very top of one of the World Trade Center towers. It’s unbelievable to think that the World Trade Center is gone. It’s just gone.
“We watched the building burn, then the horrifying, absolutely horrifying, footage of the second plane hitting the second tower. I was shaking so badly, I couldn’t speak. I had to sit down. I kept saying, ‘Who would do this?’ A half-hour later, when the first tower imploded, my mom started sobbing. All I could do was sit and put my arms around her. …
“When I got into work, we all had to buckle down and do our jobs … find out what happened, follow the events of the day, and later on, find out whether anyone from our area had been involved. This morning, I found out that a woman in Rancho Santa Margarita, a city I cover, had been on one of the planes. She was not that much younger than I.
“It’s during times of tragedy that your mettle as a journalist is really tested, as you try to separate your emotions from your job. …
“I told my parents and my boyfriend that I loved them, and said a little prayer for everyone involved. …
“And I really hope, as much as people think journalists are cynical and uncaring, that they realize these tragic events affected us just as much as it affected them.”
