The horrific impact of the 9/11 attacks will never be forgotten by any of us.
In their aftermath, people were moved in powerful and different ways, and for each of us, those dark of days ultimately led us to seek out the stories of those people bringing light to their communities and their world in the face of tragedy.
In the spirit of hope, our team would like to share their respective journeys with you…the ones that started that day, and brought us here.
Helaina:
I was 12 years old and in middle school three blocks from the World Trade Center when the first, then second, plane hit.
My neighbor and her 13-year-old son appeared at the same time as the bomb squad, who had orders to evacuate the school.
She took me with her with the objective of getting home, normally just a ten minute walk.
We left just minutes before the first tower fell.
What we witnessed as we pushed through crowds and ran for our lives has become common knowledge in the past decade: the sickening thud of bodies hitting cars, the sound of the tower crumbling, running from the cloud, people bleeding, screaming, running. We darted around in the chaos of it all, desperately trying to find a way into the east side where my grandparents and I lived, thinking that bombs were being dropped on the surrounding buildings, that fighter jets were shooting at us. We had no idea if we would be killed in an instant, or what was going to happen next. It seemed the world was ending. But it was only the world as I knew it that ended that day.
Life after 9/11 was just beginning.
As a journalist who was constantly re-traumatized by the news, I never gave up on my life’s dream of telling meaningful stories. Even at 15, for the school newspaper, I tried to focus on stories that I felt were meaningful, important, and inspiring. How ironic it had always felt that the news was the every thing that horrified me whenever I saw a breaking news bulletin or a newspaper headline, but that I still wanted to be part of that world.
When I was 18, I was given the opportunity to cover a story for the local paper about a teacher in a challenging school environment who was legally blind and only had one arm, and inspired his students to stay in school. Then, I was given the chance to cover the lives of homeless men making new starts for themselves at the New York City Rescue Mission.
In that story, I knew I’d found my calling.
I’ve been lucky enough to find a team that believes just as fiercely in the power of the media to inspire and create positive change in the face of so m darkness.
My hope for all of us is that we can see the good in the world that is still saturated with so much suffering, and that we never have a shortage of stories to write about the people who are making a difference.
World Trade Center, Photo Credit: Yann Forget, CC
Linda:
Prior to 9/11, I was working my dream job: I was the morning live features reporter for the ABC affiliate in Cleveland. I did stories on unique people, places, and community events in my “Live with Linda” daily segments. It was a light, fun way to help viewers start their day. I got to be a goofball on TV— and I loved it.
The morning of 9/11, everything changed. As soon as we got off the air, we started to learn the horrifying truth of our nation under attack. Flight 93 was hijacked over Cleveland air space, and would soon crash in a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania.
Our world was forever changed, and I spent weeks reporting from the airport on the aftermath. As the nation mourned, there was no return to lighthearted news. “Features” was the new “F” word.
Fast-forward 15 years and thousands of “hard news” stories later, and, like many journalists, I was burned out from all the depressing, tragic headlines that lead every newscast. Personally and professionally, I wanted to be part of something positive — to tell the stories of people and organizations making a real difference in our world.
Our readers’ response to Headlines for the Hopeful has been overwhelming supportive, which reinforces our theory that people need our uplifting content to help balance out the negativity. Our mission is to provide “News For a Better Future” — and I’m proud to be a part of it.
United Flight 93 Memorial, Shanksville, Pennsylvania – Photo Credit: ahundt, CC
Terry:
In all the chaos of 9/11, I remember a minute of silence. I was standing alone outside the U.S. Capitol. It and the Congressional Office Buildings around it had been evacuated, and in the confusion of people running away, I’d run back toward it. There was one more plane in the air, United Flight 93, and people were saying it was headed to Washington, DC.
Living four blocks from the Capitol, and working there practically every other day for four years, I’d never heard it so quiet. You could go there any time of day or night and see activity – staff and congress members walking or running across the grounds, kids playing on the lawn, tourists taking pictures, or at least Capitol Police keeping watch through the night.
I was only there for a minute before one of those police officers yelled from across the street demanding I leave.
In the years before 9/11, I’d covered serial killers and mass murderers, car wrecks and plane crashes. In the years after, I covered more acts of terror and lost a high school friend to an IED in Iraq. The Washington Navy Yard mass shooting happened next door to my apartment in DC — my partner, Erin, was locked down inside the place all day — and the Pulse nightclub shooting was three miles from where we lived, less than a year after we moved to Orlando.
The noise of violence deafens us to the stories of good going on in the world. I’ve grown tired of that noise. For two years, I’ve been focused on telling those stories, helping raise their volume a little bit at a time.
The 9/11 attacks will always be the “biggest” story I covered as a journalist, but, in the end, not the most important. That’s the work I’m doing now with my colleagues at Headlines for the Hopeful, telling the quiet, but vitally important stories of people doing good.
Pentagon 9/11 Memorial, Arlington, Virginia – Photo Credit: U.S. Army
Charlie:
I’m an old guy now – I remember “duck and cover”, the JFK, MLK and Bobby Kennedy assassinations, race riots and the anti-war turmoil. But I was not a news manager in Washington DC back then. September 11 defied all understanding in the early reports. We had a responsibility to cover the story aggressively while trying to understand what was happening at the same time.
In addition to the surreal nature of what was actually happening, there were many false reports of bombs on the National Mall, the State Department and on Capitol Hill. Our staff was in harm’s way.
And never before had coverage of a story created the level of emotion that our newsroom faced in those early days. Were our families and colleagues safe? There were troops on the streets, fighter jets in the air and amidst all of that we had anthrax threats against the media and the Congress. We had staff members who were potentially exposed to anthrax in the Hart Senate Office Building and required Cipro treatments. How would we handle the mail – that had suddenly turned into a potential killing machine?
And we worked, and we worked hard, for a long time.
What is important to me now is making a contribution to the understanding of how humankind is working to solve our world’s biggest challenges. We know what they are – but there did not seem to be a reliable news source that reported on the hard work that dedicated individuals and groups worldwide are making to meet these challenges.
These are hopeful stories that inform our ability to understand and face the threats to our healthy future. We want our reporting to be useful, create hope, and inspire progress through understanding.
Featured Image: Dennis Leung, CC