9/11 remembered 25 years on

I worked for 32 years as a regional newspaper journalist.

That’s more than 11,000 days spent in newsrooms publishing hundreds of thousands of stories.

I can’t begin to remember all of them but some days and some stories you never forget.

Tuesday, September 11, 2001, is one of those days. 9/11 is one of those stories.

On that day 25 years ago I was Deputy Editor of the South Wales Argus, Newport’s daily newspaper.

Still an evening newspaper and still printed on site in Maesglas back then, every day started at 6.30am as the finishing touches were added to that day’s paper.

Calls were made to the emergency services, the PA news agency wires were checked, and the key editorial decision makers (Editor, Deputy and Assistant Editors, News Editor, Sports Editor, Chief Sub-Editor and Picture Editor) met at 7am for the morning news conference to decide which stories would be added to the ‘live’ news pages – usually the first five pages in the paper.

The first edition of the Argus printed at 10am followed by a further four editions culminating in the final edition coming off the press at 1pm.

We gathered again at 2pm for the afternoon news conference – and early look at the next day’s news agenda and the placement of stories for the ‘overnight’ pages. These were the pages produced that afternoon and evening for the next day – essentially everything apart from the ‘live’ pages.

Tuesday afternoon conferences were always slightly different as they coincided with the weekly meeting of the Argus senior executive team – Managing Director, Editor, Advertising Manager, Circulation Manager, Press Hall Manager.

The Exec meeting meant I chaired the afternoon conference and updated the Editor later in the afternoon.

I don’t remember much about that conference until about 10 minutes into it when the Deputy News Editor popped her head around the door to tell us a plane had crashed into one of the Twin Towers at the World Trade Centre in New York.

It was unclear what sort of plane it was, but initial reports suggested a light aircraft. A tragic accident, but nothing more than that. Certainly nothing to concern us.

About 10 minutes later, the Deputy News Editor reappeared. Another plane had crashed into the Twin Towers. These were jumbo jets. This wasn’t an accident.

Shit.

I halted conference and walked down the corridor to the Boardroom where Exec was taking place, knocked on the door and asked the Editor to step out for a minute.

He made his excuses, and we headed to the newsroom to watch the unfolding horror on the TVs we had only recently had installed.

A decision was made almost immediately to publish a 4pm edition of the paper and get it delivered to as many newsagents as possible.

One of the few advantages regional evening newspapers with presses on site had over the morning nationals was on-the-day flexibility. We could print late into the day; they couldn’t.

It meant that when a huge story like this broke, we could be one of the first newspapers to publish it.

And so the 4pm edition came out with a front page image of smoke pouring from the World Trade Centre beneath the headline JETS SMASH TWIN TOWERS. By then, a terrorist attack was confirmed and we also reported on the third airliner crashing into the Pentagon.

If a late afternoon edition was a rarity, an early morning edition was virtually unheard of.

It had only happened twice before to my knowledge – at the start of the first Gulf War in 1991 and the day after the death of Diana, Princess of Wales in 1997.

Now the decision was taken to work through the night and produce a 6am edition ahead of the next day’s usual five editions.

There was no time to be tired; this was one of, if not the, biggest story any of us would cover as journalists.

For most of us, that meant we arrived in the newsroom at 6.30am on September 11 and didn’t leave until mid-morning the next day.

That special morning edition carried a full front page photo that captured the moment of impact as the second jet hit the South Tower and the headline WAR ON AMERICA.

Inside, the latest news of the attacks as we knew it was spread across a further 12 pages.

A framed version of the front page hung on the wall of the Editor’s office for many years.

What has become know as 9/11 dominated the news agenda for days and weeks ahead.

If we made one mistake during the next few days, it was running a front page claiming the attacks had killed 20,000 people.

It turned out to be a wild over-estimation, but in the early days following the attacks it did not seem an unreasonable death toll given how many people worked at the World Trade Centre and how little information there was about victim numbers.

As with all major news stories, at some point we had to decide that – as a regional daily – enough was enough and we needed to return the focus to local news.

In the light of such tragedies and atrocities, it often seemed almost disrespectful to do so but that is journalism. The news cycle never stops.

9/11 changed the world forever. It led to hugely divisive conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan as the US declared its war on terror and the hunt for Bin Laden claimed countless lives.

Even now, 25 years later, what happened on that day seems almost imaginable.

I still watch footage of the collapse of the Twin Towers with as much incredulity as I did in the Argus newsroom in 2001.

Not only was it the biggest of stories; it is also a reminder of a different era in local newspaper journalism.

Pre-internet, before local newsrooms were hollowed out, presses were closed, and evening newspapers became morning newspapers.

I’m not a great believer in dewy-eyed ‘it was better in my day’ nostalgia.

I do wonder though, particularly on a day like this, whether today’s young journalists are missing out on the thrill of seeing that special edition coming literally hot off the press.

But maybe I’m just an old dinosaur.