Washington Dailies Produce Special Editions on the Attacks

By: Todd Shields Washingtonpost.com saw its greatest surge of visitors ever Tuesday, and to cope with so much traffic it removed all copy unrelated to the terrorist attacks on the United States from its home page, said Don Marshall, spokesman for the Washington Post-Newsweek Interactive online service.

The previous record for visitors came the day after last year's presidential election, when page views jumped from the normal 5 million a day to roughly double that, Marshall said. "This will eclipse that," he said. Precise figures were expected in several days.

By 1 p.m., the site featured nine stories on its stripped-down home page, including a leading news roundup, an account of local school closings, a Q-and-A telling government workers about agency closures, and a review of the day's TV coverage. Contributions were drawn from wire-service reports, washingtonpost.com staffers, and writers for The Washington Post.

Washingtonpost.com put a Webcam atop its building in Arlington, Va., and trained the device upon the Pentagon a few miles to the south. Throughout the day, visitors to the site could click onto a live view, refreshed every 60 seconds, of the smoldering building.

The Washington Times's Web site also offered an array of stories about the terrorist attacks, from "New York in Chaos" to "Security Heightened Across the U.S."

On the print side, the Post and the Times each put out special editions.

The Post printed 50,000 copies of a "special late edition" that featured a new "A" section. The revised front section presented a variety of new and updated stories as well as a fresh editorial. The Post planned to distribute copies in grocery stores, convenience stores, and end-of-the-line subway stations in the suburbs, said Mary Ann Werner, a Post vice president.

The Times published about 20,000 copies of an extra, which appeared as a four-page section wrapping around the paper produced for Tuesday morning. The extra offered pictures and mainly staff-written copy, said Times Managing Editor William E. Giles.

Giles said the Times took advantage of its routine positioning of reporters with the president, at the White House, at the Pentagon, and at the State Department, as well as in New York. "It was just a different kind of assignment," Giles said. "We were pretty well deployed."

The Times expected to extend its Wednesday paper print run by about 50,000 copies, and to reduce the number of editions to two from three while continuously updating through the evening, Giles said.