GETTING THE STORY: NOTES FROM 9/11
by Deborah Potter

Everyone was scrambling. Everyone was affected. And in the midst of it all, WWOR-TV was flying blind. The station was one of several in the New York area with antennas on the World Trade Center that lost their outgoing over-the-air signals, and could only be seen via cable or satellite. But WWOR also lost its new "superquad" receive site at the WTC, which meant the station couldn't take anything in. To make matters worse, the satellite truck was in the garage at the station in Secaucus, New Jersey, and Manhattan was sealed off. Lesson one from vice president of news Will Wright: "Don't put all your microwaves on one stick."

New York One, a local cable news outlet that usually recycles much of its content, began producing news "24/7, without the benefit of a network feed," says Kirk Varner, vice president of news services for Time Warner. NY1 quickly added to its staff by bringing in 15 people from other Time Warner cable channels. Varner says because these channels are standardized, using basically the same computer systems and equipment, the out-of-towners were able to get right to work.

In Washington, local stations scrambled to cover the attack on the Pentagon, calling in all hands. But WRC-TV's news director Bob Long was stranded overseas and couldn't get back for a week. In an article on the station's Web site, special projects producer Jim Neustadt wrotes that the experienced staff and assistant news director Nannette Wilson knew what to do. "It's like a seasoned football team where each player knows how the other will react," he wrote.

WRC has a scheduled newscast at 10 a.m. following the NBC Today Show. The station extended that broadcast, and then went to open-ended cut-ins on the hour. But WWOR's early response was hampered by its staffing arrangement. WWOR produces just an hour of news a day at 10 p.m., so the bulk of the staff works a late shift. Because September 11 was a primary election day in New York, many people had been told to come in even later than usual. Most of the WWOR staff was still at home early that morning when the planes hit the World Trade Center. Wright says they got back in the game thanks to a recent ownership change. Two months earlier, WWOR had been sold to Fox, which also owns WNEW-TV in New York City. On September 11, what had been theoretical became real. WWOR was able to use the competing station's working microwave link and other facilities to produce his own coverage. "It forced synergy," says Wright.

It also forced creative thinking. The bridges and tunnels to Manhattan, where the story was happening, were closed. WWOR staff in New Jersey were essentially stranded--until a staffer who grew up in a Florida fishing village suggested hiring a boat to get across the Hudson River. To produce 15 hours of daily coverage over the next four days, the station bolstered its news staff by calling on other resources. "We commandeered the public affairs department and turned them into the field as radio reporters," says Wright. "They provided a steady stream of phoners."

NY1 depends on one-person crews. Reporters shoot their own video. And Varner says that gave his staffers an advantage in covering the crisis at the World Trade Centers. "They were able to move around in areas other crews couldn't go because they were less obtrusive," he says. The station also aired home videos. Varner says it's amazing how many people now own broadcast quality cameras to shoot their children's birthdays. "How that changes our business is something we've only started to consider."

As soon as the WRC newsroom heard about the Pentagon crash, tape supervisor Tom Hamerski panned the camera on the station's tower to get a shot up live, and alerted the NBC network. "Little did I know that they were already live with the shot as I was trying to adjust and focus the camera," he writes on the station's Web site.

Almost immediately, there were logistical problems. Telephone circuits were overwhelmed. Reporters and photographers sent to the scene couldn't communicate with each other, and the roads around the Pentagon were in gridlock. In some cases, it took them hours to find each other. "The normal process of assigning different story 'angles' to various people was impossible, and the total lack of communication quickly became very frustrating," wrote assignment manager Bill Starks.

For stations in New York and Washington, what happened on September 11 was the ultimate local story. But stations in other parts of the country faced a dilemma. How much of their airtime should they devote to network coverage? When should they cut to local news and for how long? Consultant Larry Rickel, president of Broadcast Image Group, says the ratings may tell the story. After checking the numbers for the stations he works with, Rickel says those that stayed with the network and did not interrupt frequently did better. "When they went local," he says, "the ratings went in the toilet." The lesson, he says, is that when the big story is national in scope, local news must be relevant and intensely local--"my school, my airport," as Rickel puts it. Otherwise, he suggests, stations in areas not immediately affected are better off staying with the network.

Every newsroom has undoubtedly learned lessons from this experience. For some, it's the importance of having a disaster plan. For others, the need for redundant systems or creative thinking. What we all re-learned is the critical importance of local television news in keeping communities informed and connected.