New York Newspapers Performed Admirably

By: Editor's Note: On Sept. 11, newspapers throughout the country began coverage of a catastrophe of unimaginable proportion. With the exception of a spate of ill-informed, hubristic editorials offering unsought advice on the conduct of the presidency during a crisis, the press -- and the media in general -- performed admirably. The four dailies in New York (as well as Newsday, The Record, and The Star-Ledger across the rivers) overcame utter chaos, personal tragedy, and in some cases bodily injury to produce outstanding editions that did what newspapers do best: inform and serve the public. Here are their stories. -- William F. Gloede

The Wall Street Journal

Wall Street Journal staffers found themselves having to chronicle the deadliest terrorist attack in U.S. history only after narrowly escaping death themselves. The Journal, headquartered four blocks from the World Trade Center, was near ground zero.

As debris fell from the sky, employees scrambled down the World Financial Center's stairs about 9:15 a.m., shortly after the second tower was hit. Parent Dow Jones & Co. Inc. employs about 900 at the center.

Staffers were ferried across the Hudson River to South Brunswick, N.J., where the Journal has its back-office and printing operations. A skeleton crew, many of whom had watched people plunge to their deaths that morning, fell into lockstep to produce a scaled-back version of the next day's issue in a makeshift newsroom.

"It's a cliche, but you do what you got to do," said Larry Rout, a senior editor who was among the evacuees. "I was terrified as I was walking down the stairs, and I was horrified as I watched bodies jumping. ... But I was very lucky, and I do have a paper to get out."

Fortunately, no employees were known to be seriously injured or dead.

The scope of the news merited a six-column headline Wednesday, something the paper has done only twice before in its 112-year history -- after the bombing of Pearl Harbor and the outbreak of the Persian Gulf War. One feature that was surely well-read was a list of World Trade Center tenants and floors they occupied.

The Journal, circulation 1,819,528, managed to deliver to 88% of its subscribers, and single-copy outlets sold out quickly. Those who couldn't find a print copy could read its coverage online, as the paper, one of the few to successfully charge for online news access, waived its fees for part of Tuesday and Wednesday.

Many Journal staffers went to the Jersey City, N.J., offices of corporate sibling Dow Jones Newswires Tuesday, only to find the offices empty. Employees didn't wait long to evacuate the offices, which lie directly across the water from New York's Financial District. "When we saw the first tower come down, we kind of knew it was time to go out," said Rick Stine, managing editor of Dow Jones News Service. "People were getting very emotionally distraught."

Kopin Tan, a stock-options-market reporter for Dow Jones Newswires, was eating breakfast with sources in the New York Marriott World Trade Center when he noticed debris falling from the sky and a burning smell. After joining the stream of people moving south, he passed clumps of flesh on the ground. He was only a few blocks from the center when the first tower fell, enveloping the area in a snowy dust cloud. He eventually groped his way through the dust to a ferry that took him to Staten Island.

Next day, Tan had to cover the disaster's impact on the options market, although his mind was elsewhere. He heeded the advice of an exchange person who told him that in such times it's good to follow a routine: "I didn't want to be writing about money and profit. I didn't want to come across as callous, but, at the same time, it's important to do your job."

The Journal is likely to continue publishing from New Jersey for several weeks while it looks for permanent space in Manhattan, said Dow Jones spokesman Steven Goldstein. It's not known if the World Financial Center is structurally sound enough to reoccupy, he said. -- Lucia Moses

Daily News

There were almost as many New York Daily News reporters doing stories (105) as there were stories (110) in the now-collapsed Twin Towers.

"It was an all-hands-on-deck operation," said Daily News Editor in Chief Edward Kosner, noting that reporters from the tabloid's various departments pitched in to cover the disaster.

Pictures were taken by 34 photographers -- one of whom became a story in himself. That was David Handschuh, 42, who was shooting images when the first tower crumpled. "I got swept up by a wall of hot, black, smoky debris," recalled the 15-year Daily News veteran, reached at his New Jersey home, where he was recovering from a badly broken right leg.

"It tossed me about a block. I landed under a vehicle."

Three firemen dragged Handschuh out, and carried him into a delicatessen. Soon after, the second tower came down -- burying the vehicle the photographer had just been pulled from. "I'm alive, and so many people aren't," Handschuh said somberly. "I won the lottery: my life."

Amazingly, Handschuh managed to hold on to his two cameras -- and see his photos appear in print. The father of two eventually was moved to Ellis Island and then a hospital in Bayonne, N.J., before going home. He'll be in a cast for eight to 12 weeks, and, if the injury doesn't heal properly, he might need a rod inserted in his leg.

Apparently, no other Daily News person was injured as severely as Handschuh, but many staffers put in 18-20-hour days as they churned out 80 tabloid pages of disaster coverage for the Sept. 12 issue and 75 pages for the Sept. 13 paper. Kosner said the Daily News had press runs of 1.1 million Sept. 12 and 1.3 million Sept. 13. (Its usual circulation is 716,095.) There were obviously some delivery problems, especially below 14th Street in Manhattan, but Daily News spokesman Ken Frydman said he believes virtually every paper eventually got into a reader's hands, with some just handed to people trying to make their way into, out of, or through Manhattan.

The Daily News has set up a fund to raise money for the families of police, fire, and emergency-medical-service personnel who died. The paper, which made the first donation of $10,000, ran a full-page message on its back page Sept. 13 inviting readers to contribute. By that evening, said Frydman, $122,000 was raised via credit-card donations alone. -- Dave Astor

The New York Times

"I knew it was big when the second plane crashed into the towers," said Sonny Kleinfield, a 23-year New York Times reporter who was planning to cover the New York mayoral primary when he arrived at work Tuesday. "When the first tower collapsed, it became uncharted territory."

Kleinfield was quickly dispatched to cover the World Trade Center tragedy, he took a cab as far downtown as he could, then ran the last few blocks to the scene of destruction. "I saw bodies flying out the building. It was the most horrible thing I've ever seen." Kleinfield's Page One lede the next day: "It kept getting worse." His experience mirrored that of some 100 Times metro reporters who went searching for stories amid the worst-ever terrorist attack on America.

Metro Editor John Landman said many writers began reporting on their own Tuesday morning, while at least two dozen were assigned to coverage by 10 a.m. "Everybody pitched in," he said. "We had ad-sales people on the phone, business-side people taking messages, and every reporter working on some part of this." At one point, some security staff at the newspaper were selling copies.

Reporter Dan Berry, a New Jersey resident, heard about the attacks during breakfast in his suburban home Tuesday. With all bridges and tunnels to Manhattan sealed, he hopped a Circle Line boat that had been pressed into emergency service as a ferry across the Hudson River, then ran to the Times on West 43rd Street and quickly swung into action on rewrite. "Reporters came in, some covered with ash, and dumped what they saw for me to put together," he said.

By mid-afternoon, when it became clear vehicle access into the city would remain blocked the next morning, circulation executives of the Times and The Wall Street Journal contacted New York Gov. George Pataki's office for help getting delivery trucks in. The result: New York State Police led a convoy of Times and Journal trucks into Manhattan at 3 a.m. Wednesday with thousands of papers for delivery. "We got everything in that we wanted to," said Scott Heekin-Canedy, the Times' senior vice president of circulation.

The 1,159,954-circulation paper, which normally prints 450,000 copies for sales nationwide, doubled that count for the Wednesday issue, and tripled it for Thursday's paper.

The 96-point headline on Wednesday declaring "U.S. Attacked" marked only the third time in the newspaper's history that it published a header of that size. The other headlines were "Man Walks on Moon" and "Nixon Resigns." -- Joe Strupp

New York Post

The New York Post is no longer on South Street, just blocks from the World Trade Center. But when word of the terrorist attack Tuesday crackled through the synapses of the newspaper world, the Post's Midtown office was soon empty of reporters, columnists, and photographers racing after the story. "There are no beats on this story," Jonathan Auerbach, the paper's young metro editor, told E&P in a rushed phone conversation Thursday. "Everybody called in, everybody had been in ... and they're all going to be in for the foreseeable future, working 14-to-16-hour days."

Post photographer Bolivar Arellano was one of the first on the scene at the crumbling World Trade Center. Arellano kept shooting as his legs bled. He stopped at the Post city room to drop off his roll of film before he could be taken to the hospital for stitches. Another photographer, Don Halasy, made his writing debut in the 487,219-circulation Post, penning a first-person story about being covered from head to toe in ash from the tumbling towers.

"We know we were the first ones out with an extra on Tuesday," Auerbach said, taking a crack at the rival Daily News, which did not come out with its usual free Monday-through-Friday commuter Express. "I don't know how many copies we're printing, but there haven't been any returns this week."

An indication of the unusual deployment of personnel was a perspective story about bond brokerage firm Cantor Fitzgerald, a World Trade Center tenant, that was written by Paula Froelich, whose beat normally is the Post's totemic gossip column, "Page Six." The column was kicked to the back of the book, finding a route to page 66. Even more startling was the way the paper treated news about the 26-count indictment of the obstreperous flack Lizzie Grubman, who piloted a sport utility vehicle that struck 16 people outside a hot Hamptons nightspot this summer. Since that night of July 7, the Post had been running front-page stories about the drama (even giving away a similar SUV it dubbed a "Lizziemobile"). Thursday's cover featured an uncredited photograph -- which matched exactly a shot by Thomas E. Franklin of The Record in Hackensack, N.J. -- that depicted three firefighters hoisting an American flag amid the rubble of Downtown. The Grubman story was buried on page 65. -- Wayne Robins