the attack on america
DESCRIPTION
"Gallery of scholastic media coverage of Sept. 11, 2001" from Communication: Journalism Education TodayTRANSCRIPT
6 •-Communication: Journalism Education Today Winter 2001
Gallery
Attack on AmericaLike their professional counterparts, scholastic publications
come out with supplements and extra editions
Kelly Cynecki: It was obvious that this would proba-bly be the most important article to be featured in the paper to date, so the original front-page articles were sent deeper into the news section to make room. The Update wanted to tell the readers something they didn't know. That’s why the angle of the story dealt with students with family in New York City and the reactions that Muslim students had to the attack. The story was finished hours before the paper went to press so the staff had a taste of what it is like to be in a highly pressured deadline.
UPDATE • DOW HSKelli Cynecki, editor; Betsy Rau, adviser([email protected])Midland, Mich.
ECHO • AVON HSNancy Reese, editorPam Essex, adviser([email protected])Avon, Ind.
WOLFPACK PRESS • PARK HSTim Dorway, adviser(tdorway@sowashco. k12.mn)Cottage Grove, Minn.
HOOFPRINT • MYERS PARK HSBen Chambers, editorCharlotte, N.C.
CHARGER • BULLARD HSMark Fuentes and Hoorig Santikian, editorsDiane Honda, adviser([email protected])Fresno, Calif.
Winter 2001 Communication: Journalism Education Today •-7
Alan Weintraut: Our primary challenge was finding students and teachers who would actually talk about their experi-ence. One of our sophomores lost her mother in the attack on the Pentagon, yet the grief was so fresh in her mind, she did not want to talk to anyone on our newspaper staff despite our most sensi-tive requests. We weren’t able to tell the story of her mother’s loss either through an obituary or news story. Ultimately, we all grieve in different ways, and it was a lesson for my students in respecting a family’s wishes in a time of sorrow. The students were able to get only so close to the Pentagon as well. Their pictures were obstructed by interstate light poles and traffic, but it was a great lesson for the photographers and editors who showed the initiative to go out and try to get close to the action. Lastly, students learn by doing, and putting together this issue in less than a week enabled them to test their journalistic skills of assembling stories and packaging them in a way that wasn’t already told by the national media. Their challenge was to find the local angle to the story and chronicle how our school was impacted by the attacks. Considering we are 10 miles from the Pentagon, that wasn’t hard to do.
THE A-BLAST • ANNANDALE HSDavid Covucci and Shant Shahrigian, editors in chief; Alan Weintraut, adviser ([email protected])Annandale, Vir.
NORTHSTAR • FRANCIS HOWELL NORTH HSJessica MacIntosh, David Doerhoff, editors Aaron Manfull, adviser([email protected])St. Charles, Mo.
8 •-Communication: Journalism Education Today Winter 2001
LAKEWOOD TIMES • LAKEWOOD HS
John Bowen, adviser([email protected])
Lakewood, Ohio
JAGWIRE • MILL VALLEY HS
Kathy Habiger, adviser([email protected])
Shawnee, Kan.
Ryan Gruber: “I first started out with my camera shooting some of the classes watching the event unfold on TV. I tried to incorporate the TV into most of my shots but found later that the greatest shots were the
teachers’ reactions and the students who were basically watching the terror unfold on TV live.”
David Thurston: “As an adviser, a journalist, I realized our coverage would be our own local stamp to a tragedy that would be remem-
bered forever. We did it because we are journalists, and, simply put, journalists report what is happening. In this case it was to accomplish
three objectives: practice new skills,inform and document.
CARDINAL CHRONICLE • NEWTON SENIOR HSDustin Baker, editor; David Thurston, adviser
([email protected])Newton, Iowa
MAROON • AUSTIN HSJenni Anderson/Tyler Cannon, edi-tors; Peggy Morton, adviser([email protected])Austin, Texas
MANE EVENTS • MCKINNEY HSDonnie Hogan, Katye Rutledge, Betsy
Sexton, editors; Jean Ann Collins, adviserMcKinney, Texas
Gallery
Winter 2001 Communication: Journalism Education Today •-9
Julie Barker: Because this was the only topic being discussed in the halls, and because so many students sat glued to the televi-sion, it was a story that had to be covered. One of the students said if we did not cover the story, we should stop publishing a paper. Instead of writing a story on the direct impact of the event, editors said they should have written a story about former students who work at the Pentagon, students with family mem-bers in NYC, or students whose military parents had been put on alert. They also would have liked to run an article centered around parents and grandparents. The staff wanted to ask the parents and grandparents how their lives were affected by major events, such as the Kennedy assassination or the Vietnam War, and see how the effect was similar or different to the effect the event of Sept. 11 had on today’s teenagers.
CRIER • EL DORADO HSJulie Barker, adviser([email protected])El Dorado, Kansas
Val Simianu, editor:“On Sept. 11, sophomores were taking the state-man-dated graduation qualifying examination, and administra-tors were anxious that hav-ing more than 900 students realize that their country was under attack may adversely affect their testing perfor-mance. Our goal was to try to immortalize, I guess, the imme-diate effect of the tragedy. By noon on Sept. 11, the Web site (hilite.org) had posted three 500-word pieces with a direct link to Carmel High School.”
HILITE •CARMEL HSVal Simianu, editorTony Willis, adviser( [email protected])Carmel, Ind.
SANDSTORM • RICHLAND HSAmy Trang/Cherami Cadwell, editors; Robin Morris, adviser
([email protected])Richland, Wash.
TIDE LINES • POTTSVILLE AREA HSMike Hillman/Emily Peron, executive editors; Kathleen Zwiebel, adviser
([email protected])Pottsville, Penn.