Jim Pensiero, vice president of news operations
The Wall Street Journal

NEW YORK CITY, Ground Zero, World Financial Center – 8:35 a.m. EDT: “I was assistant managing editor for administration. I was in early working on the budget on the ninth floor.”

8:45 a.m.: “I was oblivious to the first one. My wife called me at 9 a.m. and said an airplane had hit the World Trade Center. I ran across the building over to the east side. There were three floors knocked out. Paper on the street, burning cars. I was with Paul Steiger, our managing editor. He thought we might have to evacuate to our South Brunswick (N.J.), office, 55 miles from downtown.

“I called my colleagues in the tech department. We had recently installed a Unisys Hermes network system. You can use it anywhere.

“I was talking to my colleagues when the second plane hit. It shook our building. Paul said, they’re going to kick us out of here. Let’s go to New Jersey together. It never occurred to me I was in danger. I kept working. The security guard said, ‘You have to get out of here.’

“I went over to the ferry boat. As I was crossing the Hudson River, the tower fell down. Paul and my other colleagues didn’t get out of town, though they were OK.

“I got to South Brunswick late in the afternoon. We had about 35 people there. We were able to produce a 32-page newspaper. Not only did we get three editions out, we delivered 1.7 million of the 1.9 million we printed in 17 national print sites.”

What we learned: “In 1999 and 2000 I worked on a team that put in the new production system, ad layout and imaging and newspaper editing systems. We had backup servers outside of New York. The vendors we worked with had a good architectural vision of how this type of system could survive and we stayed in business.”

I love The Wall Street Journal. I was glad we were able to keep going that day because we were so close to it.”

The cover of The San Francisco Examiner on Sept. 12, 2001. Photo courtesy of  The San Francisco Examiner

Hugh Price, director of operations planning
The Washington Post

Washington D.C. – 8:35 a.m. EDT: “I was sitting in my office.”

8:45 a.m.: “Somebody called me from the mailroom and said that a plane had hit the World Trade Center and I went into the office next door and turned on the TV, and was watching when the second one hit. I ran down the hall and alerted the vice presidents, who were [in their] normal Tuesday meeting.

“The newsroom already knew about it and they were scrambling to get people down to the Pentagon to try and cover the event — the Pentagon (attack) didn’t happen until a little while later, but of course as that happened, they were scrambling to get people down there. We ran a late extra edition for that day. So, the first order of business was to get material together to put in there.

What we learned: “We were tremendously impressed by the fact that The Wall Street Journal was able to get an edition out the next day, despite the fact that their offices were right across the street. We embarked on a major program of business continuity planning and preparing backup facilities off site (as a result of Sept. 11, 2001).

“It was an amazing day. When the Pentagon thing happened, there were rumors flying all over the place and so, the Pentagon was only one of them for awhile and you weren’t sure which ones to believe. [But] you could actually go outside (the Washington Post building and see the smoke.”

Stephen T. Gray, managing publisher
The Christian Science Monitor

Boston — 8:35 a.m. EDT: “We were meeting with our director of advertising and business development, we were going over projects.”

8:45 a.m.: “We turned on the television set in my office and saw the first tower smoking. I don’t remember what we said, although I do recall that we were wondering if it had been a large or small plane and thinking it must have been a bizarre accident. As I recall, the TV news people were saying the same things. Then the second plane came into view and slammed into the second tower. We were stunned. Now we knew it wasn’t an accident and it wasn’t a small plane.

“After 15 or 20 more minutes of watching the TV screen, one of us asked if we should get back to the business we had been discussing. We both knew immediately that we couldn’t do that — everything that had seemed big and important a few minutes before suddenly seemed tiny and irrelevant. Even though we realized it was too early to know what this would mean to our business operations, we knew we had to start trying to figure it out.

What we learned: “After the attacks we shifted several reporters — people with years of experience in South Asia — from other bureaus to Pakistan and Afghanistan. We did our best to connect early with good ‘fixers’ — translators and guides — as hordes of other reporters were beginning to flock to the area, bidding up rates and flooding the scant available accommodations.”

The Sept. 11, 2001 ‘Extra’ edition of The Record in Hackensack, N.J. Photo courtesy of The Record

 
Tom Schaeffer, president
CMYK University

Harrisburg, Pa. — 8:35 a.m. EDT: “We were in a press operator’s class at the CMYK-U facility in Pennsylvania.

“We had people from all over the country Montana, Louisiana, Missouri, South Carolina, upstate New York, and two people from New York City, whose print plant is right on Wall Street.”

8:45 a.m.: “After someone hollered in from the lab to the classroom that a plane had hit one of the World Trade towers, we kind of acknowledged it but kept right on with the class. We were in the lab a few minutes later when we heard on the radio that a second plane hit. We decided to stop the class.

“Word came that all planes were being grounded, so everyone started thinking about how to drive home. Some already had rental cars, some didn’t. The guys from Bozeman, Mont., had rented an economy car and that would have meant a tough drive (38 hours from Harrisburg to Bozeman).

“Chris Lunt, president of Dauphin Graphics, loaned them his big Chevrolet Suburban but they didn’t head out until the next day, since word of the crash just outside Pittsburgh had just come in.

I drove to Washington, where my wife was at NAA meetings. We stayed overnight there and drove back to St. Petersburg, Fla. The next day past dozens of rental cars loaded with business people all in the same “no-fly” situation. It was a quiet drive.

“The tough part was for the two guys in from New York City. They had driven their own car over, but very quickly we found out no one was getting in or out of the city. They didn’t get back home for two more days. There was phone contact with their printing plant, and they were told everyone there was OK, but I’m sure there were some anxious moments for them and everyone who was in that same situation.

What we learned: “Just as it has for as long as I’ve been in this business, we learned — or had reaffirmed — that things go on. We started getting word of extra editions being planned and printed all over the country. People were awakened, coming in to run the presses and put out the pages. It is instinctive for people in our business.”

Sharon Hite, president and general manager
Scripps Howard Supply

Tyson’s Corner, Va. — 8:35 a.m. EDT: “I was preparing to go into the NAA Technology and Telecommunications committee meeting.”

8:45 a.m.: “I was speechless when I heard a plane had hit the World Trade Center and immediately felt the need to call my office to be sure everyone knew what was happening and get more information. I am not involved in the news coverage for our company, but I understand that the Scripps Washington bureau was in full operation and we were pulling every available reporter and writer across the country in for our coverage and research.

“I had to get a ride from the Washington D.C. area to Richmond, Va., where I rented one of the last vehicles available at about 2 p.m. on the 11th. I drove 10 hours alone listening to the reports on the car radio and found that I was so depressed and obsessed by this tragedy that I was unable to sleep for a couple of days.”

Andy Ritchie, vice president of production
Toronto Globe and Mail

Canada airspace – 7:35 a.m. CDT: “I was on an Air Canada flight from Toronto to Calgary.”

7:45 a.m.: “We were about an hour into the flight when we de-routed. They told us there were hydraulic problems with plane. I was looking out on the wing and said to my engineer, there was nothing wrong with that wing’s hydraulics. The plane was put down in Winnipeg, Manitoba. The captain apologized for lying about it. He didn’t want anybody on board who was a terrorist to be notified.

“When I heard I was so shocked, I didn’t believe it. It was so awful I couldn’t contemplate the magnitude of the horrific act. I couldn’t get a bus or train or rental car to Calgary to our brand new press, which was having technical difficulties. I got in a limo and the driver drove 14 hours to get there.

“That night, nine days after the launch of our new presses, we used all of our capacity, nine presses nationally. Talk about testing with fire. We did a big issue the next day, because we couldn’t get press capacity to do extra that afternoon.

What we learned: “As a team of professional media people, I was overwhelmed by their ability to go that much further to put out a world-class newspaper the next day. The second thing I learned was that I realized we were in a new era in terms of having to be prepared. We can never be overprepared to have the amounts of backup required. You never know what’s going to be thrown at you.”

Terry Eberle, editor and vice president, news
The Indianapolis Star

Indianapolis — 6:35 a.m. CDT: “I was in my office.”

6:45 a.m.: “The TV was on, so I saw news of the attacks unfold live.

As soon as I realized what was happening, I called my newsroom management team and began planning for an extra edition of The Star. The paper eventually published two such special editions in the hours that followed.

“The Star immediately called in reporters, photographers and other staffers to help assemble the special editions. Their involvement was particularly important in the production of the second extra edition, since it contained a significant amount of local reaction to the attacks.

What we learned: “The experience of 9/11 confirmed that The Star can respond quickly — and successfully — to major breaking news. It also underscored the importance of staff communication. In the months that followed, we produced and distributed regularly updated phone trees and on-call lists.”

Mike Melick, director of publishing systems and special projects
Denver Newspaper Agency

Denver — 6:35 a.m. MDT: “I was drinking a cup of coffee at home.”

6:45 a.m.: Probably the biggest thing we did was marshalled more forces to be available. We called folks that could come in. Some of our people were directly affected by it. One of my lead programmer’s brothers worked in the buildings. He didn’t come right in; he was concerned with much more important things than getting the paper out. So we grabbed as many people to come in for longer hours, more hours.

“Fortunately, we did not have to — with technology — jump through a lot of hoops. We were fairly well underway with a lot of things that probably helped things go smoother. [The technology] did hold up and did perform very well. We didn’t really have to change a lot so that we could get things out. That was the good news.”

Robert Gower, design director
San Francisco Examiner

San Francisco – 5:35 a.m. PDT: I was asleep.

5:45 a.m.: “I thought, this is war. This will change everything.

“We scrambled, we all worked together in a way never seen before. We are a very small staff, but everyone chipped in and we got the paper out on time.”

What we learned: “Preparation pays. I now like to have templates ready to go for all kinds of news, from routine to world shattering. You need to plan in advance the levels of volume you publication can speak in so on days like Sept. 11 you can simply go with the loudest voice you have, with no debate as to what this means — you’ve already decided.”

Editor’s note: We thank those newspaper professionals who shared their memories and reflections.