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Letter from the Editor Dear Reader, Twenty years ago, I was the metro editor at The Bay City Times; Tanda Gmiter was a reporter at The Grand Rapids Press; Leanne Smith was a reporter at the Jackson Citizen Patriot; and Lynn Moore was reporter at the Muskegon Chronicle.
Those papers, and four more that collectively were known as the Booth newspapers, published and were delivered in the afternoon. All of us were on deadline early on Sept. 11, 2001. Despite the many days before and since as working journalists, that day will forever stand out for us.
This is how we remember that morning.
Hiner: Our big story of the day was that Bay City had been named the Port City of the Year for the Tall Ships Festival that had occurred in the Great Lakes that summer. That was pretty big news for a small town. It was a fairly normal morning up to that point.
Smith: I was at an elementary school, doing a classroom feature. I primarily covered education, so it was absolutely normal to head into a classroom with a bunch of kids and a teacher to do a story on some cool program or offering that they had.
Moore: Like Leanne, I was in an elementary school. It was the beginning of the school year, and there had been some changes in the Muskegon Public School District and the superintendent was showing me around. I had not been in the office yet that morning; I just had gone straight to this tour of the schools.
Gmiter: I was what we referred to as “Second Engine cops reporter,” which means you came in around 7:30 a.m. So, by that time in the morning, I already had my assignments and I was working on deadline. Grand Rapids had three morning deadlines.
Hiner: We had a newsroom clerk – her name was Brooke. She had called in sick that day. The phone rang on my desk, and it was Brooke, at home. She said, “Are you watching TV? A plane flew into the World Trade Center.” My very first thought was, it was a private plane or small jet – it was an accident.
Smith: Somebody from the office came in (to the classroom), because the principal was with me, and whispered in their ear, “You probably should come to the office.” We went to the office and they had a TV there. I remember everyone standing there stone quiet, just trying to wrap their heads around what we were seeing.
Moore: We walked into a classroom and the TV was on. It was pretty horrifying and I was kind of surprised they had the TV on for the children. But nobody realized the extent of it, that it was a terrorist attack. We continued on our tour. When we learned that the second plane had hit, I remember going into a stairwell with the superintendent and he made a call back to his office to find out what was really going on. At that point he ordered all the TVs turned off in the classrooms.
Gmiter: I was writing on deadline, and in the back of my desk was a large overhead TV that was tuned into the “Today Show.” After the first plane hit, people who normally would just be walking by my desk to go get coffee or go talk to the editor were stopping, and soon there was a small group of people glued to the TV behind my chair. I stopped writing and turned around, and the second plane hit. Everybody realized this was not an accident, and that's what the TV announcers were starting to say. Then we had to come up with a plan.
Hiner: My instinct is, I’ve got to be on top of this for the sake of our readers, figure out what's happening and get that in the paper. And the instant that both buildings had been hit, all of a sudden it was chaos. Not chaos in the newsroom, it was more trying to figure out what actually was going on. Deadline was coming and two-thirds of our front page was about the Tall Ships Festival.
Smith: People kind of went into “school mode” – they were trying to figure out if parents were going to want to come and pick up their kids, and should we tell teachers not to turn their TVs on. I said, “I better get back to my newsroom.” When I walked in, it was a flurry of people running around on deadline. I don't even remember exactly what I did. I'm sure I was contributing to a story, or making phone calls or something – it just all became sort of a blur, but it was just moving into that journalist mode, doing what we do to get the news out and inform people to the best of our ability.
Moore: My memory of the newsroom was walking in and everybody pretty much in shock. I don't recall a whole lot of chatter. There was a lot of disbelief and a lot of fear. People were really scared. At the same time, having to do our jobs.
Hiner: It went to a different level when the first building collapsed. Before then, it was like, “Are they going to be able to rescue those people?” It just went to a different realm, to realize how many souls have just been lost, the likelihood that the second building would collapse. I usually hated deadlines, but I was grateful to have a deadline that was pushing us to do our jobs and stay focused, rather than just get swept away in this tsunami of the emotions of everything that was happening.
Gmiter: After the second plane hit, we saw that the FAA had put out the word that planes were being grounded. Gerald R. Ford Airport became a landing zone for planes that never intended to be there in the first place. My assistant editor sent me out with a photographer, and our job was to go to the airport and talk to travelers who were in the air when this happened and were now landing in a completely different world.
Smith: My mother-in-law had been visiting us from Florida, and she flew out that morning. Obviously, my husband is frantically trying to make sure that his mom is home. Her flight ended up being rerouted and landed somewhere in between here in Florida, where I think she stayed for a day or so before she can actually get home. That was sort of the center of his world at that point, making sure his mom was safe and trying to help her eventually get home.
Hiner: The phone rang at my desk, and it was my ex-wife. We had an 8-year-old son, and they lived in Brighton. She said, “I want to go get our son out of school. I want to know he's with me and he's safe.” I said, “Absolutely.” They succeeded in making us feel all under attack and vulnerable.
Moore: I don't remember a lot about the workday, but I do remember afterwards. I was working in Muskegon, but I was living in Grand Rapids, and so that was about a 40-minute drive. And that was the longest drive to pick up my 2-year-old year who was in childcare at the time. I was very, very emotional picking her up – just did not want to let her go. I still feel emotional when I think about it. That was a tough day.
Gmiter: It was unnaturally quiet (at the airport). I remember walking into the lobby area where there were lots of television sets, and seeing people come down the ramps, clearly confused. Not sure where exactly they were, or why they were landing there. Some of them had cellphones at the time, but not a lot, so there were big lines with payphones. And then there were clearly a couple of times where people did get bad news. I remember one time in particular where a woman who was sitting with a couple other women at a table, got a phone call, and she just collapsed into tears, crying very loudly. You assume that she had found out bad news related to the tragedy.
Hiner: We did not know the magnitude of where the story was going to end that day. But we also were an afternoon paper, and we wanted to get the papers out on the streets as soon as possible – we had to compete with the TV news cycle, too. It's hard for me to remember exact specifics of who I asked to do what, and all of the editing, but I do remember remaking the front page with a story and a huge image of people fleeing the collapsing tower.
Gmiter: I was calling in anecdotes, talking to either reporters or assistant editors in the newsroom. And then also collecting personal stories for the second-day wave of reporting. From what I recall, there were a handful of local connections in the Grand Rapids area. And I really remember the reporters that I worked with, I remember feeling very proud of them because when they contacted family members, they were really able to put together stories that shared the life of a person, not just that they were a victim or part of this tragedy, but who they were, what they loved. You know, what their life was about. And I think that was really important for readers because it gave them a sense of community, but it also showed them in great detail what we lost that day.
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MLive is marking the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks with retrospective stories on a local and statewide basis, and also with a special commemorative section that will appear in our eight printed newspapers this Sunday, Sept. 5.
And, on MLive’s “Behind the Headlines” podcast this week, I had on as guests Gmiter, Moore and Smith. To hear the complete conversation about covering 9/11 as it happened, click here. ###
Editor's note: I value your feedback to my columns, story tips and your suggestions on how to improve our coverage. Let me know how MLive helps you, and how we can do better. Please feel free to reach out by emailing me at editor@mlive.com.
John Hiner Executive Editor Vice President of Content Mlive Media Group
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