This book is a collection of newspaper front pages
about the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Aside from a
short preface, introduction and end-page
acknowledgments, there is no commentary, no review, no
judgment of the work -- just page after page of
full-color reproductions that speak for themselves.
And speak they do. The power of what we do for a
living shouts in every example. Even readers who
consider themselves jaded and cynical are bound to
feel the effect.
The book showcases pages from newspapers
in 37 states,
the District of Columbia and 16 other
countries. Page
through "Sept. 11" first as an average
reader, then go
back and re-read with a professional eye.
To do both
at once is tough, or at least was for
me, because of
the emotional intensity of the subject.
The Poynter Institute, a school that teaches
journalism skills and ethics from a base
in St.
Petersburg, Fla., assembled the collection
from front
pages submitted to its Web site. The school
had posted
an online invitation because it wanted
to see how the
Sept. 11 story was being told. "Within
a day, hundreds
of front pages were recorded on our Web
site," Poynter
chairman Andrew E. Barnes writes in the
preface.
Barnes is also chairman and CEO of the
St. Petersburg
Times.
The volume of submissions led to the decision
to
publish, for reasons that include, Barnes
states,
reminding "Americans --- especially media
corporations
- of the purpose of a free press."
Each page illustrates what Max Frankel,
former
executive editor of The New York times,
points out in
the introduction: "News is not neutral."
Witness the
San Francisco Examiner's "Bastards!" headline
in its
Sept. 12 issue (page 12), a headline that
generated
much discussion in the newsroom where
I work. Only one
of the featured pages includes a photograph
that also
sparked heated opinions: the image of
a body falling
past the almost-abstract backdrop of the
World Trade
Center. O Dia (Rio de Janeiro, page 124),
used it as
part of a three-photo unit.
All the photographs are dramatic, and they
are played
with extra-bold headlines in just about
every
newspaper featured. Most pages include,
as the main
photo, an image of the burning towers
just after the
second plane hit. Other frequently used
images: the
second plane on approach, debris-covered
survivors and
rescue workers, ghostly rubble and the
picture of two
women crying and hugging in the foreground
of a group
of people. The latter photo was cropped
a number of
ways by different editors and designers
and played
both large and small. It's one example
of how the book
is interesting on a professional level.
There are many
others.
The one thing all these pages share is
proof of a
statement Frankel makes in the introduction,
that
"news is no mere rendering of lifeless
facts." How
true.
All profits and royalties from the publication
go to
The September 11 Fund. For more information,
go to
http://poynter.org.
Depending on
what day it is, Gerri
Bauer of The
Daytona Beach News-Journal
is a copy editor/page
designer/paginator,
Travel/Arts section editor or
garden writer. She
is never bored.
