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An American
Tragedy by David T. Thompson One would only imagine that the American tragedy on Sept. 11 would mean special reports and sections in the Sept. 12 newspapers. Extra pages, most of them full news pages without advertising, would be the rule rather than the exception. That’s a statement accurate for just about every daily newspaper in the state and country. News of national importance, even international importance, is published without a second thought. Weekly newspapers, meanwhile, are expected to concentrate more on the local news, leaving regional, state and obviously national and international to the dailies. Weekly newspaper readers really aren’t interested in what’s going on halfway across the state, maybe not even a county away. They look to the local weekly to give them local news and if they want more widespread news, they buy a daily newspaper. Just as our lives changed on Sept. 11, so did the news in some Kentucky weeklies. Several used national resources to put together coverage of the World Trade Center and Pentagon tragedies. Photos and stories adorned the pages on the news, in some cases for the first time in the newspaper’s history. The Associated Press and Kentucky bureau chief Ed Staats played a role in helping some newspapers expand their coverage of the news from New York and D.C. “This is a national tragedy that transcends normal operations. If AP can help its smaller newspaper members tell the story to the American public, we should do it,” said Wick Temple, AP’s vice president and director of newspaper membership, in a note to AP bureau chiefs. As a courtesy, Staats also saw to it that other newspapers’ needs were met as they tried to serve their readers with a complete account of these tragic developments. In addition, AP’s Newsfinder service for weekly and semiweekly newspapers relaxed its rules and made spot stories and photos available. There are nearly as many Newsfinder members for AP in Kentucky as daily newspapers, Staats noted. Staats said that in recent years, in an effort to make the AP state report more complete, “we have worked more closely with nondaily newspapers across Kentucky to obtain stories that we otherwise would not have in our state report. “We saw this as an opportunity to reciprocate,” he told me. Todd County Standard Mike Finch, publisher of the Todd County Standard, said in his 23 years at the newspaper, “I’ve never attempted to cover a national story. Heck, except for the legislative roundup stories (supplied by KPA), I don’t cover state news. So I was feeling if we couldn’t get something worthy of print, we might be best not trying anything.” The Standard ended up with the top-half of the front page and double spread inside devoted to the national news. Finch also localized the story with photos of long lines at Todd County gas stations, a knee-jerk reaction to rumors that gas prices were about to skyrocket. The decision to cover the story meant a local festival story didn’t make the Standard. Finch said it should have been in the paper, “but we just dropped the ball as we became too interested in printing the national news.” But that complaint was tempered by at least four calls from people saying a relative or former Todd County residents lived in the area of the World Trade complex and would make interesting stories. “We’re working on that angle for next week (the week of Sept. 18),” said Finch, “and then we’ll probably go back to normal.” Georgetown News-Graphic Mike Scogin, Kevin Hall and the Georgetown News-Graphic staff kept its traditional newspaper front, full of only Scott County news, but published a four-page wrap devoted to the events. “We will continue to cover the event for at least one or two additional issues with a page,” said Scogin, “and we set up a special section on our web site.” Scogin said response has been encouraging. “It’s been positive with the readers saying they appreciated our ‘break’ from the normal. In fact, I think our readers expected this from us.” Concerning the special section on the web site, Scogin said “our daily page views this week are twice the normal amount. We even had an e-mail from an Australian who relayed that nation’s support for America via our web site.” The News-Graphic’s first problem was art, but after contacting the AP Newsfinder and WLEX-TV in Lexington, “both responded quickly and we got some photos.” The decision to break from the norm was an easy one. “Once it was certain this was a terrorist attack, there was no question we were going to cover it,” Scogin added. Princeton Times Leader The news of the tragedy made Chip Hutcheson, publisher of the Princeton Times Leader, think a wire story and photo on the back of Section A would be all his paper would do. “But as the day unfolded, we soon realized more than that was needed.” The Times Leader had two photos from a community prayer service and two more on the local gas-buying frenzy. With Fort Campbell nearby, Hutcheson made the local tie-in with the situation there. The lead story used a Princeton perspective with the local Red Cross chairman. Hutcheson noted the Times Leader’s 5:30 a.m. press time on Wednesday gave the staff sufficient time to collect a large amount of information. “Since that story was on the hearts and minds of everyone, we felt that our focus had to be on it, too. The challenge was to localize it as much as possible” As did others, Hutcheson thanked Ed Staats, Kentucky AP bureau chief, and the Associated Press for lifting the 24-hour embargo, “allowing us access to late-breaking information.” Harrodsburg Herald Rosalind Turner, news editor of the Harrodsburg Herald, perhaps summed up the way many weekly newspapers felt. “National coverage is not our usual beat, but a tragedy of this magnitude touched the lives of everyone in the nation and could not be ignored even by a community newspaper,” said Turner. “It was not a tough decision to make.” She noted that for historical purposes, Sept. 11, 2001, was a date “The Harrodsburg Herald could not ignore.” Like many other newspapers, normal local news in the Harrodsburg Herald was moved to the back page to make room for the national coverage. The Herald’s coverage included photos from the AP, a story on what had happened and then the local perspective that included comments from Harrodsburg policemen, two former military services persons, the KPA story on the governor’s press conference and stories on local agencies that would become involved. Various other stories were inside The Herald that week, and the opinion page featured an editorial, two columns and a cartoon by the staff artist. Hancock Clarion Hancock Clarion publisher Donn Wimmer used a couple of national color photos then localized coverage with pictures from the courthouse where a prayer gathering was held. The Clarion localized the story as well. * * * * * KPA Associates chairman Armando Arrastia, like so many Americans, felt deflated when news of the World Trade Center tragedy first made the airwaves. When the second plane hit the towers, “I felt more deflated and absolute disbelief — it felt like I was watching a movie. I wanted to faint, but couldn’t.” Arrastia had reason to be more emotional than most of the rest of us. He used to work in the World Trade Center for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. He had friends in the WTC bombing eight years ago and had colleagues and friends still working there. “I looked at the images and used what I know about the buildings to figure that the planes had both hit above the 78th floor,” which is higher than the floor where his colleagues and friends probably were. Arrastia left the coverage for a legislative committee meeting, believing his friends were, in all likelihood, OK. That meeting adjourned early because of the tragedy. He went to a nearby office to use the phone. “The camera was showing a picture of the portion of a city shrouded in smoke and flames.” Having heard about a plane going down in Pittsburgh, he asked “Is that Pittsburgh?” The response came. “No, that’s the World Trade Center, it collapsed.” In disbelief, he repeated his question, “Is that Pittsburgh?” because he accused them of joking. Assured it was the World Trade Center, Arrastia said, “I had to sit down. All I could think about was the poor people, some of whom I surely knew, who were in those buildings.” The dominance of the two WTC towers, according to Arrastia, isn’t imaginable “unless you’ve been to the Trade Center and looked at the towers from across the Hudson or from its base — leaning against it and looking straight up the exterior of the building. “You can’t imagine how immense those buildings were. The twin towers absolutely dwarfed everything near them, both horizontally and vertically,” he said. Arrastia compared the two buildings to his present office building, the Capital Plaza Tower in Frankfort. “Each tower is more than four times the height and the width of the Capital Plaza Tower. They were an awesome sight and I could never have imagined that they would crumble to the ground like they did.” A day after two planes brought down the towers and still worried about his friends, Arrastia made contact with a couple of them. Bill Cahill, a former AP reporter who worked with Armando as a Port Authority spokesperson was on the 61st floor when the crashes occurred. Cahill said he didn’t suffer a scratch. Then Arrastia was able to get in touch with a “dear friend” who escaped the tragedy as well but who is now commissioner of public affairs for the New York City Fire Department. His friend’s secretary confirmed that she was all right, then told Armando, “This is very difficult for us.” He thought back to the bombing in 1993 and how his former boss, during the evacuation, stopped on one of the lower floors to call some media to let them know what was happening inside the WTC. “I’m afraid some of my friends did the very same thing this time, trying to inform the public, and maybe therefore ended up getting caught in the collapse. I pray not.” His media relations experience combined with his personal ties to the World Trade Center tragedy gave Arrastia a chance to advise reporters. “Don’t forget that in any story like this, you’re dealing with people who have hopes and dreams, people who at the end of the day must go home — or won’t go home — to their families. It’s very tragic.”
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