Recalling 9/11: When world news becomes local

As a community paper, The Tecumseh Herald generally does not cover most national or international news. The terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, were an exception as stories about their local impact were reported in the Herald, beginning with the Sept. 13, 2001, edition, pictured.

By David Panian

TECUMSEH — Sept. 11, 2001, started as a typical Tuesday morning at The Tecumseh Herald, as the staff worked on that week’s edition.

Then-editor and publisher Jim L. Lincoln was at his computer laying out pages when Julie Daly, another staff member, received a phone call from her husband, Marc, telling her that a plane had just hit the World Trade Center in New York City.

“When you first heard that, it just kind of makes you stop and try to process what this all means,” Lincoln said, recalling how the events that unfolded that day in New York, at the Pentagon and in southern Pennsylvania changed not just his plan for what would go on the paper’s front page that week but would also change so many aspects of American life for years to come.

Because the news of the two hijacked airliners crashing into the World Trade Center towers and the Pentagon was being covered live on television, Lincoln went home to get his small, portable TV. He was on Union Street on his way back to the Herald’s office when the first World Trade Center tower came down.

He got back to the office and set up the TV with its rabbit ears in the break room.

The staff was watching as the second tower collapsed.

The only other event Lincoln could compare it to was watching the reading of the verdict in O.J. Simpson’s murder trial. He brought the portable TV into the office for that, too.

“There was just this stunned silence. It was silence for the towers. It was silence for O.J. Simpson. It was history in the making, and we were all together, witnessing it,” Lincoln said. “…It was just a numbing experience. I just couldn’t try to process how could that happen?”

As a community newspaper, national and international events rarely make the pages of the Herald.

“Ninety-nine percent of what we work on is community-based, and that’s our focus,” Lincoln said. “And yet certain things can happen nationally or internationally that are shocking that your community gets pulled into.”

One of those things that happened that afternoon was dozens of people lining up at local gas stations on rumors that gasoline supplies would run short in the aftermath of the attacks. The Herald ran a small photo of cars lined up at the Speedway station on West Chicago Boulevard with a brief description of the “big run on gasoline” that caused at least one local station to close after it sold out of fuel.

Lincoln also made a change to the front page. He doesn’t recall what originally was supposed to be the centerpiece story. It’s usually a less-newsy, feature story, so it could have been the story by reporter Cristina Trapani Peck about Brian Reilly, the new owner of Atlas Feed & Grain in Clinton, and his plans for the business. In the final product, that story started on the bottom of the front page and continued on page 8B.

In place of the original centerpiece, Lincoln wrote a 313-word summary of the attacks and the immediate reaction locally. It also included a box labeled “You can help” that directed readers to page 5B for information on blood drives and how to make monetary donations announced by the American Red Cross.

To illustrate the story, Lincoln needed a photo. The Herald doesn’t subscribe to news wire services, so he found a royalty-free photo online showing lower Manhattan with the World Trade Center in it, looking across the water toward the skyline shrouded in a low-hanging fog. In the upper left part of the photo, he added the phrase “In Memoriam.”

Lincoln also wrote a new editorial to run on the opinion page.

“A small, weekly newspaper would usually sound pompous commenting on national affairs, but in this instance the outrage and anguish touches every American,” the editorial reads.

Acknowledging the desire for retaliation, the editorial urged readers to donate blood or money to help those directly affected by the attacks. It also cautioned against a rush to judgment against any particular nation or religious faith that would “let the lunatics drive us apart from our American neighbors. That would be accomplishing one of the goals of the terrorists.”

The editorial said it was a time for healing the injured, consoling those who lost loved ones and standing behind the president.

“Now is the time to fly our flags at half-mast,” it concluded.

Next to the editorial ran the weekly “On the Street” feature, where the responses of six community members to a question of the week would be featured. The question that week: “How do you think the U.S. should respond to the terrorist attack?” All of the responses supported finding those responsible and retaliating. Future topics also were related to the attacks, such as questions about sacrificing freedom for security against terrorism. Some were willing to give “as much as it takes.” Others were more cautious and concerned about ineffective or invasive security measures.

Continuing coverageThe following weeks covered local events related to the response to the attacks and stories about local people who were affected by them while keeping up with the usual stories about life in and near Tecumseh.

“Our radars are programmed to pick up things that could be newsworthy, and this was so much on everyone’s mind and shocking that one comment about a granddaughter, anyone related, who had any kind of connection to New York suddenly becomes something of interest,” Lincoln said.

In the Sept. 20, 2001, paper, the front-page centerpiece covered how local communities were rallying to support relief efforts. The back page of the news section featured photos from around the area of the U.S. flag on display, people checking in to a blood drive and scenes of people standing for the national anthem and moments of silence. Next to a story about Britton-Deerfield’s come-from-behind, homecoming football win over Madison, the sports front page of the Sept. 20 paper included all four verses of “The Star-Spangled Banner” and a brief history of what led Francis Scott Key to write the song that became the national anthem in 1931.

The following week, the Herald covered the candlelight vigil that took place Sept. 25, 2001, at Adams Park next to Tecumseh City Hall. It also reported on a local connection to those who were killed at the World Trade Center: Jennifer Cobb, a great-granddaughter of Tecumseh Products Co. founder Ray Herrick, lost her fiance, 26-year-old Robert McIlvaine, who was attending a conference in the Windows on the World restaurant on the 106th floor of Tower One. Peck interviewed Cobb about McIlvaine and told the story about how they met while working at Burson-Marsteller, the public relations firm of Merrill Lynch’s Corporate and Institutional Client Group, and how they were supposed to be married in October 2002. She commended the firefighters and volunteers who were there when McIlvaine’s body was one of the first identified on the evening of the attack. New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani even spoke with her and McIlvaine’s family.

“We were treated like we were the only ones who had lost someone in New York City. We could never have gotten through this without everyone’s support. They are exceptional,” Cobb told Peck.

“If anyone can be lucky at a time like this, we were,” Cobb said at the time. “He was one of the first to be discovered in the wreckage, when at a time there were only a total of 35 confirmed dead. It’s a blessing because there are more than 5,000 people who don’t know. We were lucky. It brings us a bit of peace at this time.”

Doing stories like that isn’t easy for reporters.

“It’s so challenging, isn’t it, when you’re dealing with tragedy,” Lincoln said. “I think it’s one of the hardest things journalists face is calling, interviewing, talking to someone who’s gone through tragedy.”

In the Oct. 4, 2001, edition, reporter Deane Erts wrote about the community’s support of the owners of Pilot Market, Mahmoud “Mike” Awad and Omar Abuliez, and their assistant, Ahmed Abuliez. Awad immigrated to the U.S. from Jordan in 1986, and he and Omar bought the store in 1997.

In the days following the attacks, “People would come into my store and tell me, ‘I hope nobody bothers you. I hope you still feel welcome here,’” Awad told Erts. “It was a very good feeling to me. It was the best feeling to have friends and even strangers tell me these things after what had just happened.”

Letters to the editor touched on the attacks and their aftermath. Some were from active-duty servicemen. Others offered thanks for support of fundraisers or recommended prayer. Some urged greater civic engagement or wrote about the country’s aspirations to prevail against those who would tear it down.

One week after the 9/11 attacks, anthrax-laced letters started to arrive at several news media offices and at the offices of some U.S. senators. Locally, an envelope with a Saudi Arabian postmark arrived at the Tecumseh Products Co. on Oct. 11. It contained a powdery substance, and a hazardous material cleanup crew was called to remove it. The woman who opened it and others who worked nearby reported feeling ill. The envelope was turned over to the FBI. A Michigan State Police crime lab determined the powder was not hazardous.

The same edition included a story about a scholarship fund being created at Tecumseh High School to honor Kathleen Nicosia, a flight attendant on American Airlines Flight 11 that struck Tower One of the World Trade Center. Nicosia’s sister, Kim Myer, lived in Tecumseh and her daughters both attended THS.

The next week, the Tecumseh Police Department reported it had taken possession of four suspicious letters, including one from South Africa delivered to city treasurer Diane Sackett. The “On the Street” question asked if anyone was concerned about anthrax being in the mail.

In the Dec. 6, 2001, paper, Peck wrote about members of the Lenawee County Critical Incident Support Team who went to New York to provide assistance to first responders working at Ground Zero. The team included Sgt, Kevin DeCatur of the Tecumseh Police Department; the Rev. Nancy Hollenback, a counselor; Sgt. Lynn Courington of the Adrian police; and Sgt. Rick Arnold of the sheriff’s office.

Eventually, the stories about the attacks faded as the war in Afghanistan against al-Qaida and the Taliban ramped up. However, as the new year approached, the state of the nation was still on people’s minds. The “On the Street” question asked about new year’s resolutions. Half of the responses were related to 9/11, with people wanting “God to come back and straighten us out,” for Osama bin Laden to turn himself in and for the world to be more safe and in peace.