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We had started planning the paper at 10 a.m., and so we thought
we'd have a good jump on making the night's deadlines. And then
the bombing raids started.
The accident story got pushed to the bottom of the front page
and to the local news cover. We were now dealing with a lead
story that had lots of potential local news angles for reporters,
but whose photos and graphics were going to come from the wire
services. No local soldiers were involved, but we had lots of
people to call for input...political experts, Muslims, people
involved in Operation Desert Storm, and so on.
We had lots of wire photos of people in dark suits at press
briefings and of President Clinton and Prime Minister Tony Blair.
And there were lots of grainy, Jello-O green photos from CNN
of the Baghdad skyline under fire, shot through night vision
optics. The photo I recommended as the lead photo was shot by
a Department of Defense photographer, which showed a missile
being launched from an American ship.
We had to plan impeachment coverage, too, as we dealt with
the bombing raids. We had originally planned to take most of
Friday's front page with the impeachment debate in the house,
but those plans were pushed back a day. While most area papers
ran up to a half dozen AP "frame grabs" of white men in dark
suits speaking from the floor of the House from the televised
impeachment debate, I suggested we use AP staff photographer
Doug Mills' photo of the American flag highlighted against a
dark blue sky, near the Capitol dome, which was almost in silhouette.
The paper stood out boldly in the next day's newsracks, especially
next to the competition.
We ran "head shots" or small portraits of local attorneys and
residents we had asked to comment about the impeachment for
the Saturday and Sunday papers, but most of our coverage came
from AP. We'd gone to the well too many times looking for people
watching the scandal on TVs in electronic stores, on college
campuses, in bars, and so on, and were always disappointed with
the results. We decided not to run another photo of no one watching
a blaring and glaring TV set. It was an extraordinary news week.
We normally emphasize local news on our front page, but this
was not the week to be provincial and relegate wire news to
the second rung.
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Saturday's
Front Page
©1998
Racine
Journal Times
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Sundays
Front Page
©1998
Racine
Journal Times
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The
Planned Thursday Story:
I was working
late Tuesday, catching up on some paperwork, and had left our
dog in the car, when the fire radio reported an accident with
two children trapped in a car. Fenway (our dog) was with me
because she loves car rides, and I had planned to be in the
office for no more than an hour.
Neither Marci
Laehr Tenuta, our police reporter, nor I budged when we heard
the call, because such calls can simply mean that a door has
been wedged shut by the force of a collision. Minutes later,
however, a police commander phoned and asked me if I'd heard
the call on the radio. "It doesn't sound good," he said. The
reporter and I flew out the door.
As we drove
to the accident scene, we heard that a car was trapped under
a city bus. When you hear something like that on the police
radio, you just keep heading to the scene, not wanting to see
what you think you'll be seeing, but knowing you have a major
story unfolding.
The overhead
picture, shot with the cooperation of the fire department from
the bucket of one of their ladder trucks, sets the scene. The
navy blue car at the far left went through a stop sign at a
high rate of speed, hitting the bus. The bus went out of control,
hitting two parked cars. One was the red car that was knocked
into the middle of the street. The second one was the Ford Escort
that was in a driveway, with two people in it, which turned
over, and ended up under the bus.
Keep in mind
that I was on a tight deadline when we got to the scene. There
were several simultaneous rescues going on around live, downed
power lines. The first spot I shot from was the porch near the
blue car (or what the police call the "offending vehicle").
Two fatal victims of the accident...teen agers close in age
to our sons...were stretched out on the grass in front of me,
and I realized I couldn't offer any photos from that angle.
I had to drive around the neighborhood to approach the scene
from the other side (I couldn't walk down the block because
of the downed power lines) to shoot the rescue effort going
on under the bus. After six quick frames, it was time to get
film back to the office. I had no expectation that there would
be any survivors from that car, either, but miraculously, both
occupants of the car survived with only minor injuries.
Things then
got a bit complicated when I realized I'd lost my car key for
the first time in 24 years on the job, and had our dog in the
car, no way to get my film to the office, and had left a stranded
police reporter at the other end of the scene. Fortunately Jim
Slosiarek was still in the office, and was able to get my film
and Marci, while I waited for my wife to bring me another key
to the car.
We ran the
bus rescue photo on Wednesday's front page. Once that picture
was in production, I went back to the scene to get "second day"
photos, and to phone in additional information to Marci as it
became available. We had planned to use the overhead photo five
columns across the front page of Thursday's paper. We had gotten
a sketch of the accident from police, and Theresa Schiffer,
our newsroom artist, was going to make a graphic explaining
the chain of events. In addition to the usual profiles of the
victims of the crash, and the story of the third occupant of
the blue car, who was in critical condition, we would print
our interviews with the survivors and photos of them. We also
had one harrowing additional interview to print, an interview
with Kristin Anderson, who missed a ride by five minutes Tuesday
night. The ride would have been in the blue car. That story
hit us especially hard, because we all know Kristin, the daughter
of our newsroom librarian.
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