There is just no other way to say it:
We blew it Thursday.
Thursday, of course, was Sept. 11, the seventh anniversary of the terrorist attack that killed more than 3,000 Americans at the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and in a Pennsylvania field.
The Plain Dealer acknowledged the occasion on Page One with three small promos atop the “News Minute” in the left column, directing readers to an editorial inside the paper that celebrated the new memorial at the Pentagon, and to two online items. Inside the A section was a lone wire story about Barack Obama and John McCain agreeing to a political joint appearance at a memorial ceremony in New York City.
It wasn’t enough.
The rest of Page One featured a promo about the upcoming Ohio State-USC football game across the top of the page, and four stories, led by a piece about state budget cuts and a five-column photo and story about the Rockettes kicking off the PlayhouseSquare season.
Reasonable choices on another day – but not this one.
It was the Rockettes photo that really got a lot of readers going.
“You have dishonored the memory of those who died at the hands of terrorists” by “relegating 9/11 to a blurb in favor of the Rockettes,” wrote Herb Braun of Pepper Pike, speaking for many of the dozens of readers who called or wrote in protest.
I don’t think we dishonored anything, but we clearly missed the mark for what Braun and many others anticipated from their newspaper that morning.
Certain anniversaries are special, almost sacred, occasions to many readers.
They expect – no, demand – not only a significant story about the Pearl Harbor attack in the Dec. 7 paper, but also a report of what was done to commemorate the day in their Dec. 8 paper. Every year.
Same with D-Day, on June 6 and 7. Same with Memorial Day and V-J Day. Every year.
If we don’t do that, these readers fear that we are allowing these significant occasions to slip out of the public consciousness, causing people to forget the history and sacrifices those dates signify.
Sept. 11 has emphatically joined this group.
We didn’t ignore the anniversary, and had never intended to. Much of Friday’s Page One was devoted to Sept. 11 memorial coverage. That was by design. Daryl Kannberg, the editor who oversees Page One selections, said that editors had decided on a more restrained presentation on the day of the anniversary, followed by a bigger Page One centerpiece the next day, covering the many memorial services.
But that plan didn’t fly with readers who, after seeing Thursday’s paper, charged The Plain Dealer with being anti-American, unpatriotic, insensitive and worse.
Those who accused the paper of having a short memory are a bit forgetful themselves. It would be difficult to find a newspaper that covered the tragedy with more reverence and newsprint than did The Plain Dealer, both in its immediate aftermath and on each of the first five anniversaries.
As time passed, however, editors dialed down the volume. In fact, last year’s Sept. 11 coverage wasn’t much different from this year’s – and the Sept. 12, 2007, newspaper was considerably more muted than this year’s. I don’t recall getting a single complaint.
What was different?
Perhaps the upcoming election has people more focused and more sensitive to slights. Perhaps it was a couple of radio talkers who spent all day criticizing the coverage and demagoguing their listeners.
For a reality check, I looked at the Thursday front pages of the 50 largest newspapers in the country. It was instructive. Thirty-five had significantly more Page One coverage than we did. Oddly, in New York, where the largest death toll occurred, both the Times and the Post had even less Page One presence than we had. Nevertheless, overall we seemed seriously out of step.
When we are still in the moment, it can sometimes be difficult to decide which occasions will live on in history, commemorated each year, and which will not. Out of curiosity, I checked back in the archives to see how The Plain Dealer covered the seventh anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor.
On Dec. 7, 1948, we had nothing on the front page – only an ironic editorial, critical of post-war opportunities lost. On Dec. 8, the occasion was marked by a five-paragraph story.
That proves nothing, of course. Today’s culture and journalism are not what they were 60 years ago. And it took no seer, then or now, to forecast that the original Pearl Harbor, and the 21st century’s Pearl Harbor, would live as icons of their times. But it is interesting.
One thing must be said: People who accuse The Plain Dealer of having some sort of insidious agenda, of trying to deliberately downplay the memory of 9/11, are wrong. No one here was any less shattered by the attack than any of you were.
As Kannberg said, “This horrific event touched us all in so many ways. It’s not something I just think about once a year on Sept. 11. It’s something I’ll carry with me forever.”
This news judgment call had nothing to do with a political agenda.
The motives were pure, though I think the judgment was faulty.
