By: Joel Davis Perseverance, teamwork, and a reporter with a well-placed source helped the
Boston Herald break several key developments in last week's terrorist attacks.
Herald Investigative Editor Jonathan Wells said the paper was apparently the country's first news organization to report, among other things:
* That Massachusetts authorities identified at least five Arab men as suspects in the attacks launched from Logan International Airport.
* That a car laden with Arabic-language flight training manuals was seized in the Logan parking garage, and that two of the men, their passports traced to the United Arab Emirates, were brothers, one a trained pilot.
* That once airborne the hijackers on one of the flights used makeshift knives from shaving kits and other sources and started killing stewardesses in the rear of the plane so as to lure a pilot from the cockpit and seize the plane.
The story, first posted on the
Herald's Web site,
http://www.bostonherald.com, early Sept. 12, won national attention for the reporting team of Ed Hayward, Tom Farmer, and Cosmo Macero Jr., who were aided by several other
Herald staffers, including Wells, who said the paper was "flooded with calls" after the revelations.
Wells said the exclusives were the result of "grinding reporting all day," adding that "most of the revelatory stuff ended up coming through one reporter late at night with a source." He declined to name which reporter had the key source.
Comments
No comments on this item Please log in to comment by clicking here