Trent Lott was Senate Minority Leader and wanted to cut taxes. Liddy Dole had announced she would run for Senate. The NAACP was urging a boycott of a downtown hotel called “Adam’s Mark.” The night before, Forsyth Commissioners had approved putting a $150 mm school bond issue on the November ballot.
The day was Sept. 11, 2001, and that was the front page of the Winston-Salem Journal. A typical day in a typical month. It all seems so long ago. That Sunday, we had begun a multi-day series on the leadership problems in Forsyth County.
The front page from that day is instructive. It’s the end of one era and the beginning of another—for our country and for newspapers. But as with most changes, we didn’t know it at the time. The events of 9/11 were the first true Internet disaster. And just as the first Iraq war cemented cable news as the content provider for real-time news, 9/11 changed the rules for media. Yes, the ‘net had been around and used alot prior to 9/11, but its role and purpose, its ability to absorb and digest and create dialogue, discord, and community became clear on 9/11, and it’s never been the same.
Required reading: I rarely put in plugs for books, but I think that everybody—and I mean everybody—ought to read the report of the 9/11 Commission. It is scrupulously fair and balanced, with a heart-stopping narrative of what took place aboard those planes and on the ground. It is an amazing guide to what happened, why it happened and what went wrong. It is an incredible work of history, of writing and of journalism.
Your host is Ken Otterbourg, the managing editor at the Winston-Salem Journal. It's a forum to discuss the media, from
The 9/11 Commission report is excellent and a fairly quick read. If you like it, you should also read “Ghost Wars” by Stephen Coll and “The Looming Tower” by Lawrence Wright.
On another front, I was deeply disturbed by the news of the two young boys from Danbury that went missing and, unfortunately, were found dead in the Dan River today.
What bothered me more was the flash email I got from the Journal that read “Breaking News.....Missing Boys found dead” or whatever it said. Ken- I felt ashamed following the link to the story. The Journal’s overeager efforts to drive people to the site leaves me with a really bad taste in my mouth. Can’t you guys tone it down? How about “Sad News” or something that shows you actually have a pulse and some sense of concern for that family’s feelings right now? The loss of these boys is heartbreaking. I feel terrible for the parents and grandparents and hope that they are given the room they need to grieve the loss of these boys.
John, I hear you. The subject line in our flash email said: Breaking News: Bodies of missing boys found in Dan River. The headline on the story said: Authorities find bodies of young brothers missing near Dan River.
I’m not sure there’s any way to say what happened in a low-key way. You’re right that this is a sad, sad story, but I think it’s important that the media play it straight and not get too maudlin about things, even when the events are so obviously terrible. Unfortunately, what we think of playing it straight up sometimes appears insensitive. We’re not. We grieve like everybody else, and we work hard at being respectful of those in times of tragedy.
Point is, it’s hard to send out a breaking news alert about a tragedy that somehow soft pedals the tragic.
I’ll pass your comments along to our online staff.
Thnx
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