Remembering the past once a year
My newspaper column
Like most of you, I remember exactly where I was that horrendous Tuesday morning when I heard about the planes crashing into the World Trade Center. I was called out of a meeting and joined a crowd in front of a television. After the first tower collapsed, we began planning an afternoon "extra."
I'm less clear in pinpointing the moment I realized that Hurricane Katrina had devastated the Louisiana and Mississippi. News of the storm's deadly aftermath rolled out so gradually, yet relentlessly, that it was days, rather than moments, before the full tragedy had unfolded.
I mention this because last week we revisited the Gulf Coast a year after Katrina with a four-day series of articles and photos. Today, with our front page story on Sandy Bradshaw, a flight attendant on United Flight 93, we are beginning a week-long series remembering Sept. 11, 2001.
These types of stories on historical anniversaries are a staple of newspaper coverage. Every year, we, and most news media, note the attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7 and the Normandy invasion on June 6. We publish stories reflecting on the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy on Nov. 22 and Dr. Martin Luther King on April 4. Every once in a while, we have mistakenly ignored these anniversaries and suffered the wrath of readers with longer memories than ours.
Locally, we've added Feb. 1 (Greensboro Sit-ins) and Nov. 3 (the communist-Klan shootings at Morningside Homes) to the list of occasions that warrant reflections every year.
On stories like this, I often fear that the wall-to-wall television coverage will wear people out. I experienced this myself last Tuesday and Wednesday with all the network correspondents reporting from New Orleans.
I believe that we have found a good balance in our Sept. 11 package, with a mix of local and national stories that you can read at your convenience throughout the week.
Here's some of what we have planned:
* We asked readers to tell us how Sept. 11 changed their lives. Each day this week we will publish their responses. As you can tell from Joel Morrison’s letter on the front page, they are powerful.
* Next Sunday, we tell the stories of a Pleasant Garden woman who lost her brother in the attack, an Asheboro man who, as a combat medic, served at the Pentagon after its attack, a 59-year-old reservist called up to active service, and a New Yorker who moved to Snow Camp after the trauma of Sept. 11.
* The front page for Monday, Sept. 11, will have a different, special look. That's all I'll say for now.
We revisit such events for two reasons.
First, history helps define the way we live. On these special occasions, people have a personal relationship with the event. They know where they were at the time. They know how it affected their lives. In the case of catastrophe, we remember who died. In the rarer cases of celebration, we remember the achievement.
But memories fade and occasionally myths take hold. History is worth retelling and remembering.
The second reason is a more practical one: the event's storylines often need to be updated. The Katrina stories last week are a case in point, telling us what has happened to some of the survivors of the hurricane both here and in Mississippi and New Orleans.
They also served to remind us of the roles the various governments have played -- or have not played -- in improving the lives of citizens.
Perhaps the best description of the importance of revisiting Sept. 11 comes from Pat Waugh, Sandy Bradshaw's mother, who told staff writer Maria Johnson: "I don’t want people to forget, and not just for Sandy. The general public becomes complacent. Maybe they think this isn’t going to happen again."
Comments (8)
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John,
I actually still have a copy of that extra edition, as well as the Sept. 12 edition of the N&R. I pull them out every so often to look at the amazing picture on the front page, and to read the stories.
You guys did an outstanding job those two days in September, 2001.
And, you created a bit of history for me to share occasionally with my kids.
Thanks!
Posted on September 4, 2006 4:34 PM
"But memories fade and occasionally myths take hold. History is worth retelling and remembering."
Absolutely.
It's important to help keep the conspiracy theorists from going too far over the edge.
Posted on September 4, 2006 4:46 PM
It is also worth remembering, especially since I could see the smoke from my then house in NJ an smell the horrid stench afterwards, that the man responsible for this attack is alive and well, and for that matter unmarked by the Administration. 5 years this man is allowed to live, can anyone answer me why? I thought this was the Administration that killed terrorist? Not let them live.
Posted on September 4, 2006 5:42 PM
Does your coverage ever actually say what you dared to say.. that the effects of Katrina rolled out gradually taking days for the effects to be realized?
Or, do you again insist on laying most -- if not all -- the blame on Bush?
It would seem your damning statement above would actually support the belief that Katrina was not an initial mega-disaster (like a bomb or something) that would/should be responded to as such... but instead a slow evolving disaster that no one -- especially local officials -- had a clue how to respond to.
Posted on September 4, 2006 11:32 PM
Mr. Ovittore, do you know EXACTLY where bin Laden is? Do you have any idea how big the Hindu Kush or the Khyber Pass is? How many hundreds of thousands of troops should the US draft to fulfill your dream of catching bin Laden? Why didn't we "catch" Hitler in WWII, how on earth did we win without doing it? How about Hirohito, we didn't catch him, either. So does that mean we didn't defeat the Japanese?
Your lame sneer at the Bush administration is akin to calling the hundreds of federal, state, and local police idiots because they couldn't find Eric Rudolph in the NC mountains. It's like saying that Eric Rudolph was "unmarked" by hundreds of police searching for him. Was Saddam Hussein "unmarked" by Coalition troops hunting him? Or did he always live in a hole in the ground BEFORE we started looking for him?
Your snide comments are assinine.
Posted on September 5, 2006 3:24 PM
Mr. JayCee
I would be able to buy it more if our boys and girls were in the right country trying to find Osama bin Laden. I do know EXACTLY that bin Laden is not in Iraq. Comparing Hitler to bin Laden is the kind of off the wall Republican remark I'd expect to hear. Saddam was never unmarked, we looked and we found him. If the Repulican agenda is the war on terror, I would have to say it is a weak agenda. I might remind everyone who's watch 9/11 occured on, after Bush recieved intellegence, which he failed to read. I might also remind you that 5 years have passed, and no bin Laden. We can catch Warren Jeffs but not bin Laden? Yes the USA is a much larger area for our folks to cover, and yes we still caught the man. I think if we wanted to catch bin Laden, we would look for him and catch him. Our boys and girls are in harms way for what? Bring them home or at least send them to the right country.
Posted on September 5, 2006 6:56 PM
Mr. Ovittore, I apologize for my remarks. I had no idea you were so clueless about military and intel operations as your posts reveal.
I'm sorry I gave you credit for having a clue what this is all about.
My sympathies to your family for having to put up with you at holidays and family gatherings. I can only imagine the burden you are to them.
Posted on September 6, 2006 1:19 PM
Yeah JC,
That's the way to show your true colors. Oh, and did you hearthe congressional report today about how intel showed that Saddam was not linked to Al Quadia or Bin Laden and they knew this before dropping bombs in Iraq.
By the way, tough guy, I'd like you to be so tough in person. Easy to type demeaning remarks while hiding behind a keyboard and mouse, but I guarentee it won't be so easy to my face!
Posted on September 9, 2006 2:15 AM