In newsrooms across the country, we’re coming up for air after a week that has been extraordinary for all of us. So many thoughts, so many emotions, so many fearful stories to tell.
And it’s by no means over.
The fallout from last week’s terrorist attacks is going to be felt globally for years, and the media will have a difficult job not just reporting it, but living up to the standards that were set by both TV and newspapers in their coverage the past seven days.
In that respect, observers say the press did few things wrong and nearly everything right as it showed its strong suits: TV with live pictures and raw immediacy, and newspapers with detailed reporting and analysis on complex issues.
Combined, the public has been kept well informed about a day and its aftermath that will long be remembered in the history of the republic.
“I think both media have been doing a superb job building on their strengths, especially as the shock wore off, each at the highest level of what they do best,” says Terry Hynes, dean of the college of journalism and communications at the University of Florida.
For the TV networks, the attacks gave them a chance to display what they should be doing every day but don’t – using a combination of people and technology to report the news in an extremely powerful way.
The public relies on TV for much of its information, and that was shown again with more than four-fifths of Americans saying they went to TV for coverage of the attacks, according to a survey done last weekend.
“TV is the first choice. It has been overwhelming, even with the rise of the Internet,” says Carroll Doherty, editor at the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press in Washington, D.C.
TV had the horrendous images of the New York City and Pentagon assaults, but also much more.
There were personal accounts from witnesses and survivors. There were far-flung reports from Pakistan and Afghanistan. And there were thoughtful interviews with foreign policy and terrorism experts.
If TV can be faulted for anything, it may be that it dehumanized the death, destruction and tragedy by replaying for days the video of the jetliner crashing into the World Trade Center’s south tower.
But Hynes doesn’t think so, saying the attack’s surreal nature took a long time to sink in.
“Every time I watched it, it became a more cumulative effect for me, in that the impact became stronger each day,” she says.
At newspapers, the attack resulted in the kind of coverage that is the printed word’s trademark but also something we don’t do enough of – going beyond the breaking story and supplying detail, context and a depth of understanding, particularly on international affairs.
On the day of the attack, newspapers printed extras and special sections in numbers unseen since the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor nearly 60 years ago, according to the press trade journal Editor & Publisher.
What followed was a torrent of substance on a host of fronts, ranging from the impact on local communities to stories on terrorist networks, military strategy, lax airline security, Wall Street and individual grief and loss.
Some of it has been solid investigative reporting, such as work done by The Boston Globe about security problems at the city’s Logan International Airport, where two of the hijacked flights originated, says Hynes.
“That’s an important piece (of the story) to hone a picture of what happened,” she says.
Doherty also says newspapers and TV – taking their cues from statements by President Bush and other senior administration officials – have strongly conveyed to the public the hard fight against terrorism that lays ahead.
“I think the public has a very, very realistic sense of this crisis, and the media is responsible for that,” he says. “It’s stunning to see the number of people who expect this to go on a long time.”
The challenge the media now face is to stay sharply focused in reporting the many elements of the story as it shifts and changes. And that, says Hynes, will require a commitment of money, manpower and time from news organizations.
“TV stations and the companies that own them – and that own newspapers too – need to invest in the resources to do good journalism, and that involves going out and talking to sources,” she says.
“This story is never going to be told by going to official sources. It’s going to take a lot of time and effort to tell this story, and that costs.”
