For many years, my job was helping people sort through their things as part of the downsizing process. I can confidently assure you there were some things in 99.4% of homes: a silver plate covered vegetable dish, a pair of weighted sterling candleholders, and newspapers and magazines from historic events. The periodicals saved were, in order of frequency, coverage of the Kennedy assassination, Apollo 11 landing on the moon, the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster and 9/11. These were saved in particular because they were tangible documents that told us what we needed to know about those events. They were important to us at the time the things happened, and keeping them was keeping history. Since the founding of our country, we’ve kept newspapers to preserve America’s history. They were important, so we stored them away safely, treating these historical publications like we treat family heirlooms.
On September 11, 2001, there were four ways we found out what was happening: word of mouth, television news, radio and newspapers. There was internet, barely. No smart phones. No Facebook. Those who had their televisions or radios on at the time alerted those of us who didn’t to turn them on. According to the Pew Research Center, 90% of Americans got their news about 9/11 via television, with 80% of those people keeping the TV on at all times. Newspapers and TV networks had a basic web presence, with static sites that were being updated on the fly. But volume crashed the sites, just as it crashed phone lines from everyone frantically trying to contact family and friends.
We did not know if the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and the field in Pennsylvania were going to be only events or if there would be more. And so we watched. And we went out to buy or waited for the newspapers to be delivered on September 12, or on September 11 itself, if the newspaper printed a special extra edition. The news channels filled time waiting for new news with repeated information and horrifying videos on a loop, doing nothing to calm our anxiety. Reading the newspaper gave us a chance to consume and process what was going on in a quieter, more logical way. We read the words of reporters and absorbed the photographs captured by photojournalists. We were reading history through newspapers as it was happening. Those print newspapers, while not as immediate as TV and radio, were important because they told the whole story. And that’s why papers covering 9/11, like the other historic events that shook our country collectively, got saved.
In the media world today, there are a million ways we absorb news. 53% of us get our news from social media. Only 7% of us still rely on print media, but 48%-56% of us turn to newspaper’s digital sites. Being digital, newspapers can update their reporting at the same pace as television news channels and have the advantage of being portable via phone. But it’s a little sad we won’t have print issues from important days to tuck in our drawers for the next generation to learn from.
There are lots of ways to learn about and remember 9/11. There have been documentaries, movies and books. There are pundits and influencers bringing their sane and insane takes to us through our phones. Regrettably, petty squabbles and mistaken memories about who did what and when they did it also come to us in that way. None of these remembrances can capture the anxiety, fear, uncertainty and ultimately, unity, as completely as the first hand shoe leather reporting from the print journalists and the searing photographs that froze moments in ways video can’t.
There will be many ways September 11 is remembered on this 25th anniversary. But none will be as complete or important as the newspapers saved from 2001.
The New York Times, September 12, 2001, available from warren1333, $80.
The Tennessean, (Nashville), September 12-16, 2001, available from fungirlsfriday, $55
Richmond Times-Dispatch Extra edition, September 11, 2001, available from Yumi’s Market Vintage N Toys N Garb, $19.99
The Cincinnati Enquirer, September 11 & 12, 2001, available from Collect-Toyz, $34.99
The Detroit News, September 12, 2001, available from Scatterbrain Workshop, $34.79
The Orlando Sentinel, September 11 & 12, 2001, available from blackpearl9299-2, $6
USA Today, September 14-16, 2001, available from rectorstudio, $11.
Read more:
Marking the 25th Anniversary, 9/11 Memorial and Museum
American Psyche Reeling from Terror Attacks, Pew Research Center, September 19, 2001
Two Decades Later, the Enduring Legacy of 9/11, Pew Research Center, September 2, 2021
