BSU 09-09-21

A moment of silence

Twenty years later: Remembering 9/11

See BEYOND, 06 MAGGIE GETZIN; ALEX HINDENLANG, DN

09.09.2021

ballstatedailynews.com

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Remembering Tuesday, Sept. 11, 2001: Looking back and paying respect

BallStateDailyNews.com From The Easterner to The Daily News: Covering Sept. 11, 2001

Nearly 20 years ago, The Daily News highlighted the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. The paper covered breaking news going on in New York City and Washington, D.C., as well as student reactions, area schools increasing security and Muslim groups’ responses to the attacks.

The front page of the Sept. 12, 2001, edition of The Daily News appeared on display in the Newseum in Washington, D.C., alongside other noteworthy front pages from newspapers published Sept. 12, 2001.

The Society of Professional Journalists also collected and compiled covers from the same day in a book dedicated to memorializing front pages covering 9/11.

If you have any Daily News memories you’d like to see highlighted, email news@bsudailynews.com.

Ball State to remember 9/11 Sept 10: Ball State will hold a ceremony

at Beneficience Friday, Sept. 10 at 9:11 a.m. to commemorate the 20th anniversary of 9/11. Provost Susana Rivera-Mills will lead the ceremony, and students, staff, faculty and Muncie community members are invited to attend. Those who cannot are encouraged to pause for a moment of silence.

VOL. 101 ISSUE: 4 CONTACT THE DN Newsroom: 765-285-8245 Editor: 765-285-8249, editor@bsudailynews.com

The Ball State Daily News (USPS144-360), the Ball State student newspaper, publishes Thursdays during the academic year, except during semester and summer breaks. The Daily News is supported in part by an allocation from the General Fund of the university and is available free to students at various campus locations.

EDITORIAL BOARD Taylor Smith, Editor-in-chief Connor Smith, Managing Editor Grace McCormick, News Editor Sumayyah Muhammad, Lifestyles Editor Ian Hansen, Sports Editor John Lynch, Opinion Editor Adele Reich, Video Editor Rylan Capper, Social Media Editor Maya Wilkins, Copy Director CREATIVE SERVICES Maggie Getzin, Creative Director Kamryn Tomlinson, Visual Editor Alex Hindenlang, Visual Editor

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CORRECTION

The Sept. 2 edition of The Ball State Daily News switched the names of two students in the Quad Bash gallery. Freshman Annabeth Elston was on the right, while senior Mary Asante was on the left. An opinion piece also incorrectly referred to Harvey Milk as “governor,” rather than a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors.

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03

REMEMBERING REFLECTING We are the generation after 9/11.

When the planes hit the towers, we could hardly walk or talk; some of us weren’t even born yet. We grew up in the aftermath of tragedy — learning about it in our history classes or through the stories our parents and mentors told us.

We don’t know what it’s like to remember where we were when we heard the news Sept.

11, 2001. We don’t have an emotional connection to the event that is as strong as what our parents and mentors have.

But still, we mourn and remember the victims, and continue to tell their stories out of respect for them

and their families.

This year, in honor of the 20th anniversary of 9/11, The Daily News is reflecting on the tragedy and bringing light back to the memories of the people in the Muncie and Ball State communities whose minds remember that day most. We may not know what it was like to watch the news that morning and understand what we were seeing, but we still want to honor the 2,996 souls lost and the more than 6,000 people who were injured nearly 20 years to the day.

As journalists, we give a voice to the voiceless. It’s in our blood to help tell their stories.

, DN KAMRYN TOMLINSON

- The Daily News Editorial Board

MEMORIES

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News

of Manhattan

SHUTTERSTOCK, PHOTO COURTESY; ALEX HINDENLANG, DN

Members of the Muncie community who were in New York City on 9/11 reflect on the tragedy.

Maya Wilkins Associate News Editor

“Then, it was real.”

But, even having interacted with people evacuating from downtown and watching [the attacks] on TV, it still kind of felt like a movie until they started showing footage of people jumping out of the windows — and, then, it was real.”

- JASON NEWMAN, CEO of the Boys and Girls Club of Muncie

It was Maria Fitch’s 3rd birthday.

Jason Newman, CEO of the Boys and Girls Club of Muncie, was a preschool teacher in the Brooklyn Heights neighborhood at the time.

Before the school year started, he paid visits to his students and their families. For Fitch, her visit coincidentally fell on her 3rd birthday — Sept. 11, 2001.

“I got off the subway, and I heard a boom — which, in New York City, you hear all the time — whether it’s a truck backfiring or some work being done in the street, so I didn’t think anything of it,” Newman said. “And I just kept walking over to Maria’s house.”

He made it to Fitch’s house for their 9:30 a.m. appointment and rang the doorbell for 10 minutes until Fitch’s mom answered the door.

“A plane just flew into the World Trade Center,” she said.

Newman said everyone in New York had thought it was an accident at the time, so he went on with his 15-minute appointment with the Fitch family.

But, as he was getting ready to leave their home, Fitch’s mother said a second plane had flown into the World Trade Center.

“That was a bit different,” Newman said. “That

was more of a ‘Huh, there’s something going on’ moment.”

After leaving the Fitch’s house, Newman went to work at Plymouth Church School located inside Plymouth Church — a historic church in Brooklyn about five or six blocks away from the World Trade Center. He sat inside with his coworkers and listened to a radio to figure out what was going on, but there were still few details.

As time went on and more reports came in, Newman said shuttle ferries evacuated people from downtown Manhattan and brought them across the East River into Brooklyn. As people evacuated, Newman and a few of his coworkers handed them water bottles, blankets and towels to do whatever they could to help.

“There were people coming across the river, and you’d see them, and it just looked like they had white hair because it was covered in ash,” he said.

Newman said they gave survivors whatever they could use to wash themselves off or keep warm.

He also said there was a pizza place and a deli on the street handing out free pizza and water. He felt like he couldn’t leave because he wanted to help, but no one knew what was going on — they knew it wasn’t an accident but didn’t know the full extent of the tragedy.

“I’m trying to — on my cell phone — call my family and just make sure that everybody’s OK, and cell service was just horrendous,” Newman said. “I wasn’t repeatedly calling people because

I was doing other things, and I was trying to keep track of what we were doing, so I didn’t actually hear anything from anyone in my family for hours.”

After helping at the church for a couple of hours, Newman went to his father’s house to try to use the landline phone to call family and watch the news in hopes of getting some answers. However, when he turned on the television, the only station available was one that played a local program named New York One. “They kept showing the planes flying into the towers, which was just incredible to see,” he said. “But, even having interacted with people evacuating from downtown and watching [the attacks] on TV, it still kind of felt like a movie until they started showing footage of people jumping out of the windows — and, then, it was real.”

Newman had been to the top of the World Trade Center prior to the 9/11 attacks and said he “could not imagine the terror that must have been in those people’s hearts” to jump.

Newman said he continued to turn off the television every so often and go outside to interact with other people until his father and stepmother came home. The three of them went on a walk to the Promenade, a walkway in Brooklyn that overlooks the Manhattan skyline, but it was packed with people.

Because it was so busy, they went back to his dad’s apartment and looked at the skyline from the roof.

05 A New York Standstill

Smoke billows in place of where the old World Trade Center in New York City stood moments before. Jason Newman’s family had a view of the World Trade Center from the roof of their apartment. JASON NEWMAN, PHOTO COURTESY “One of the spookiest things that happened at that point was we walked up to the roof and found what must have been somebody’s little day planner,” Newman said. “We found pages on our roof kind of burned and charred up, and the date that landed at my stepmother’s feet was the day my brother was going to be getting married … the date that landed at her feet was the day of his wedding.”

Newman said he remembers walking around the neighborhood that night, talking to whomever he could to get more information about the attacks.

“We all kind of knew people who worked down there, and we were just trying to check in on families that we knew … and just looking for some sort of interaction,” Newman said. “A lot of New Yorkers do not generally talk to strangers, but you would pass somebody, and it was, ‘What do you know? Where were you? Do you know anybody who was there?’”

For nearly a year after the attacks, Newman said, it was impossible to walk on the streets without someone asking if they knew anyone killed in the attacks or where they were when it happened.

“You couldn’t walk past any firehouse that didn’t have empty boots lined up in front of pictures of the men and women that lost their lives,” he said. “I didn’t know anybody directly who died, but nobody didn’t know anybody who knew somebody that died.”

Newman said he didn’t have to explain what happened on 9/11 to his students, but he would have conversations with parents of his students about the best ways to discuss what happened.

“Everybody was scared, everybody was sad and everybody was nervous, and none of us had words for it … we never really talked about it with the kids, and it never really came up,” he said.

Nearly 20 years later, Newman said he doesn’t spend a lot of time thinking about 9/11 but gets emotional each year on the anniversary when he watches tributes to the victims.

“I think if we had not been through the 2020 we’ve been through or the 2021 that we’re in now, I think [the 20th anniversary] might hit a lot harder,” he said. “I think, after the last 20 months that we’ve had, it’s a little bit different.”

Newman said he doesn’t know how he will feel on the actual 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, but he will always remember Sept. 11, 2001, was Maria Fitch’s 3rd birthday and that she grew up in a New York City completely different from the one he had known.

Jelani Eddington grew up in Muncie and attended Indiana University before he moved to New York City to finish law school and begin practicing law in 1999. He found out about the attacks when a friend of his from Indiana called and asked if he knew there was a plane that had crashed into the World Trade Center.

“I had not heard yet because I was in the office early — earlier than I normally would have been that morning,” Eddington said. “I think I popped onto CNN.com and saw the first images of the World Trade Center with a hole in the side, and that’s sort of how everything started for me.”

Eddington’s office was in midtown Manhattan and the World Trade Center was downtown, so he was not close at the time of the attacks, but he did go downtown later that day.

“Shortly after I heard about the attack, I actually jumped on the subway to go to a cafe that was near Christopher Street, where [me and my friends] would typically hang out,” Eddington said. “About halfway there, the subway stopped in the middle of the ride, and they basically said that, due to an ongoing or developing emergency at the World Trade Center, they were going to stop and let everyone out.”

When he left the subway, Eddington was about five blocks away from the World Trade Center.

“Coming out of the subway, you saw everybody motionless,” he said. “Everybody was just standing right where they were, looking up. Taxi cabs had stopped, and their doors were open with the radio turned up so that people could hear, and everything just came to a standstill, which is not something that you ever really see in New York.”

which he said is different from how most people observed the events. Everything he heard had come from listening to those close to ground zero.

Although he had gotten a lot of information about the attacks from the people around him, not all of it was necessarily true, Eddington said.

“We started to hear, at one point during the morning, that, I think, Camp David had been attacked or there was a bomb at the State Department,” he said. “There were just all kinds of other things that were happening that were just kind of like a big game of telephone.”

Eddington was at ground zero for about 20-25 minutes that day, he said, but it seemed a lot longer than it actually was. One of his most vivid memories from that day, he said, is from when he had been standing at ground zero for about 10-15 minutes.

“There was what looked like a wall of people running away from the Trade Center north [tower] toward my position where I was standing,” Eddington said. “And, at about that same time, the law enforcement on the street started shouting at us that we need to leave, we needed to run.”

Law enforcement had gotten reports about a third plane in the air — which Eddington assumes is the one that crashed at the Pentagon — and was told it was coming to New York, so everyone in that area needed to run and get away.

“That’s a very vivid memory that I have just because it was one of those times in your life where you actually think that you might be in mortal danger right there in that moment,” Eddington said. “I think it’s the only time in my life that I felt like I was at risk of dying imminently, and that is a feeling that is unlike anything else.”

Everybody was just standing right where they were, looking up. Taxi cabs had stopped, and their doors were open with the radio turned up so that people could hear, and everything just came to a standstill, which is not something that you ever really see in New York.”

- JELANI EDDINGTON, Muncie local and 9/11 eyewitness When Eddington looked up at both towers, the north tower, where the plane had already hit, had a “great deal” of fire, smoke and debris coming from it. He had thought there was only one attack and didn’t see the damage to the south tower until people around him began pointing it out.

Like Newman, he had believed the attack was an accident and that a small plane had crashed into the twin towers. It wasn’t until he questioned how two planes could make the same mistake that he realized it was intentional.

“I remember saying, ‘Well, how could there possibly be two airplanes that strike and crash?

How is that possible?’ Then, this guy looked at me and he said, ‘Well, you don’t think that it was actually an accident, do you?,’” Eddington said. “And I was like, ‘Oh well, I hadn’t really considered that either.’”

Eddington learned the details of the attacks from the people around him rather than from the news,

Eddington ran for about five minutes until he felt he was far enough away that he could walk.

He tried to find a subway or bus to take back to his office in Midtown, but nothing was running at the time, so he started to walk uptown. But, nearly half an hour later, he said the streets turned into pandemonium.

He had not thought about the building collapsing, so he was shocked when the people around him had told him one of the twin towers had fallen.

“I looked back again, and there was just one tower, whereas, obviously, there had always been two before,” Eddington said. “I remember thinking, ‘Wow.’ When that happens, it’s very difficult to process what somebody has told you has happened, and now, when you look, there is only one tower standing and a lot of smoke.”

He continued to walk uptown to his office when, 30 minutes later, he stopped to talk to someone on the road and watched the second tower fall.

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“I do vividly remember seeing the building come down, which would have been the north tower,” Eddington said. “By then, you knew what had happened with the south tower, so in a sense, it was a little less shocking, but you can’t quite process what it is that you’re seeing.”

In that moment, Eddington said, he wasn’t thinking about the thousands of people who were in the building because he believed it was still early enough for there not to be many people. But when he got back to his office, he learned more about the attacks and saw footage of them playing on the screens in Times Square.

“When you see that for the first time, it’s just so jarring and so shocking,” he said. “From that point, it started to, I guess, sort of slowly sink in a little at a time. It took a while to process just what had happened.”

Eddington said he went back to lower Manhattan after it had been shut down and reopened after the attacks. He said he remembers how eerie it was because two or three inches of dust settled on every surface in the area.

“You saw vending trucks that still had their bagels and drinks in them, and they were all covered with dust, and you saw storefronts where the windows were blown out, and they all had mannequins in them with the clothing on, covered in dust,” Eddington said. “It was unlike anything I’ve ever experienced.”

Eddington remembers, for months after the attacks, posters of missing people lined the city, and everyone was too scared to take them down and acknowledge their loved ones were really gone. Every subway stop he went to, he said, was lined with the faces of lost loved ones.

On 9/11, Eddington said, all the subways were done for the night, and he was ready to sleep in his office, but someone had told him the ferry service was running late and bringing people across the Hudson River into New Jersey, where he lived at the time.

“I went down there and there were — I couldn’t even estimate — 30-40,000 people trying to get on ferries to get off the island to go across to New Jersey,” he said.

Eddington said they were all standing shoulder to shoulder on the ferry, trying to fit as many people on as possible, and the boat made its way into New Jersey, passing what remained of the World Trade Center.

“For my entire life, I had always seen the World Trade Center down there, and, now, it’s just not there,” he said. “Instead, there’s just this billowing plume of black smoke, and you just look at that and cannot comprehend that is what’s happened. And on that boat with all those people, it was absolutely silent. Nobody was talking — everybody was just looking at that and was silent.”

For Eddington, he said it doesn’t seem like it’s been 20 years until he realizes there’s a whole generation of people who have grown up after 9/11, which he realized most when he visited the National September 11 Memorial shortly after it opened in 2011.

“It’s one of those key, defining moments in time that you’ll always remember,” he said. “A lot of stuff happened as a result of 9/11, and it all goes back to that day … it had a huge, huge, huge impact on virtually every aspect of life.”

Contact Maya Wilkins with comments at mrwilkins@bsu.edu or on Twitter @mayawilkinss.

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07 Ian Hansen Sports Editor It was Tuesday morning. Ball State Men’s Golf head coach Mike Fleck was driving to meet a friend who was doing embroidery work for his team. Fleck was on his way to a Hardee’s in Pendleton, Indiana, and he had Q95’s “The Bob & Tom Show” playing on his radio when, all of a sudden, the usual lighthearted show turned serious.

An airplane hit the north tower of the World Trade Center.

Fleck and his friend sat down to drink coffee, and they both were watching the television inside Hardee’s, shocked by what was on the screen.

A few minutes passed before another plane hit the south tower. Fleck described what happened as “chaos.”

“That was one of those days where you remember where you were and what you were doing — it was that impactful,” Fleck said. “I just remember how the nature of the show had changed, that’s kind of a comedic-type programming, and it got pretty serious and started talking about how the plane went into the tower, and everything was kind of coming in fast.”

One of Fleck’s golfers at the time, then-freshman and 2007 Ball State alumnus Lance Scholl, was in his dorm room in Noyer Complex when he got an email from a friend of his who asked if he saw what was going on. Scholl flipped on the TV. “I was just in shock,” Scholl said, after the first plane hit. “When the second plane hit, that is when my instincts knew that we were under attack. I knew the chances of that happening were astronomical, but I remember calling my family and making sure everyone was OK. It was all just so shocking. My heart was just broken for those who lost their lives. It was a shocking and sobering day.”

Another one of Fleck’s golfers, then-senior and 2002 Ball State alumnus Nathan Vannatter, was in the Whitinger Business Building attending his trigonometry class. The TVs inside were turned on as everyone sat in shock, not knowing what was happening. Students eventually dispersed from the classroom to try to figure out what was going on — an experience, he said, “he will never forget.”

At the time, Fleck said his golfers were reaching out to him trying to understand what was happening, and he tried to be a good listener as their coach. Ultimately, though, he didn’t have much to say because he was in the same situation as everyone else.

“It was about just being a really good listener, also paying attention to their feelings and what they’re verbalizing to you,” Fleck said. “But, honestly, I was in the same boat as they were. We all wanted to know, ‘What’s going on? Why is this happening? Are we going to be OK? Is our safety threatened?’”

About a month after Sept. 11, 2001, Fleck, Scholl and Vannatter were all going to get an opportunity to see ground zero, as they were scheduled to play golf in New York City at St. John’s University at the Quaker Ridge Golf Club. There were some initial feelings of uncertainty, Scholl said, as he and his teammates prepared to fly for the first time since 9/11.

“There was some initial trepidation, but there was excitement,” Scholl said. “It was almost a

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DNRemembers

Golfing near Sports

GROUND

ZERO Ball State Men’s Golf head coach and former golfers reflect on visiting Manhattan a month after 9/11 attacks.

TNS, PHOTO COURTESY; ALEX HINDENLANG, DN

privilege to go play in New York almost a month after the worst tragedy of our country’s history.

Obviously, we got to play on a first-class golf course, but, of course, go and pay our respects.”

Scholl said everything from the airport experience was different. Airport security conducted full-body scans of passengers flying, and airplanes were almost empty with very little chatter.

After arriving at the airport, Fleck and his golfers took the subway from White Plains, New York, to lower Manhattan — an experience Vannatter said

was “unique and unforgettable.”

“Going to New York gave me a different take on things,” Vannatter said. “Landing in New York, there were guys with machine guns standing everywhere. Coming up those stairs, I couldn’t even fathom what it was like being there in the moment or even a few days after. It is something I will never forget, nor should the rest of the world.”

When they walked up the stairs from the subway station to the city streets, there was ash, rubble still on fire, flowers in memory of those who lost their lives, broken glass everywhere and a church still

Going to New York gave me a different take on things. Landing in New York, there were guys with machine guns standing everywhere. Coming up those stairs [to view the city], I couldn’t even fathom what it was like being there in the moment or even a few days after. It is something I will never forget, nor should the rest of the world.”

- NATHAN VANNATTER, Former Ball State Men’s Golf member and 2002 Ball State alumnus From left to right, Nathan Vannatter, Mike Fleck and Lance Scholl stand near the World Trade Center site, often referred to as “ground zero” or “the Pile,” a month after the attack. It took 100 days for the final fires to stop burning.

NATHAN VANNATTER, PHOTO PROVIDED

standing less than 100 yards from ground zero that looked as if it wasn’t even touched.

Scholl, Vannatter and their teammates explored the city for a couple of hours. They could smell the wreckage and even got dust and ash on them from simply walking around. They also talked to some officers who were on the front lines of the attack.

“They were really kind,” Scholl said. “They knew that we were just college kids viewing ground zero. They took some pictures and were kind of telling us where to go. It was a nice connection point that might have relieved some of their stress.

I remember their kindness, but you could also tell how exhausted they were as well.”

Scholl said the exhaustion came from having to find bodies a month after the attack. The officers gave them a detailed account of the events of 9/11, which gave them a new perspective on the severity of the attacks.

“It was just heartbreaking,” Scholl said. “It was also touching, at the same time. It was probably the last time our country was so unified. It was unfortunate because it was the most massive tragedy our country experienced, but it was also awesome seeing the outpouring of support, the work [of] the police and firemen and others helping sort out the wreckage.”

The Cardinals still had a tournament to play, and despite having to lock in and focus, Vannatter said, he knew it wasn’t going to be easy.

“You still have to focus,” Vannatter said. “At that point, we were trained enough to go out and do what we do. It [was] just, at that point, there were a lot bigger things going on in the world than golf.”

Contact Ian Hansen with comments at imhansen@bsu.edu or on Twitter @ianh_2.

DNRemembers 09.09.21

08

8:50 a.m.

8:47 a.m.

Mohamed Atta and the other hijackers aboard American Airlines Flight 11 crash into floors 93-99 of the north tower of the World Trade Center in New York City.

New York City Police Department and Fire Department forces dispatch units to the World Trade Center within seconds of the crash of Flight 11.

Port Authority Police Department officers on the scene begin immediate evacuation of the north tower.

Former White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card alerts thenPresident George W. Bush about the plane crashing into the World Trade Center.

At the time, Bush was visiting an elementary school in Sarasota, Florida.

8:41 a.m.

8:40 a.m.

United Airlines Flight 93 takes off from Newark International Airport to San Francisco with 44 passengers aboard.

Air traffic controllers of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) alert the Northeast Air Defense Sector (NEADS) of the North American Aerospace Defense Command about the suspected hijacking of Flight 11. NEADS personnel send two fighter planes in response to locate and tail the hijacked plane.

8:20 a.m.

American Airlines Flight 77 takes off with 64 passengers aboard heading to Los Angeles from Dulles International Airport outside of Washington, D.C.

8:19 a.m.

Flight attendants aboard American Airlines Flight 11 send an alert to ground personnel warning their plane had been hijacked. American Airlines personnel then alert the FBI.

WIKIMEDIA COMMONS; GETTY IMAGES; UNSPLASH; FLICKR; US NATIONAL ARCHIVE, PHOTO COURTESIES

8:14 a.m.

United Airlines Flight 175, with 65 passengers aboard, takes off from Boston to Los Angeles.

With 92 passengers aboard, American Airlines Flight 11 takes off from Logan International Airport in Boston en route to Los Angeles.

MAGGIE GETZIN, DN

09 09.09.21 DNRemembers

9:02 a.m.

Hijackers aboard Flight 175 crash the airplane into floors 75-100 of the south tower of the World Trade Center.

Port Authority officials broadcast orders to evacuate both towers. An estimated 10,000 to 14,000 people were already in the process of evacuation.

9:24 a.m.

FAA personnel notify NEADS of the suspected hijacking of Flight 77 after some passengers and crew members aboard the aircraft were able to contact their family and friends on the ground.

in

Lifestyles

slow motion

For the first time in the administration’s history, the FAA grounds all flights over or bound for the continental United States. At airports in Canada and the U.S., 3,300 commercial flights and 1,200 private planes were guided to land.

9:42 a.m.

-Staff Reports

A detailed timeline into the events of Tuesday, Sept. 11, 2001

8:30 p.m.

President Bush addresses the nation, stating the attacks were “evil, despicable acts of terror.” Bush then declares America, its friends and allies would “stand together to win the war against terrorism.”

9:31 a.m.

Speaking from Sarasota, Florida, Bush calls the events in New York City an “apparent terrorist attack on our country.”

Flight 77 crashes into the west side of the Pentagon in Washington, D.C.

9:59 a.m.

The south tower of the World Trade Center collapses.

10:07 a.m.

The north tower of the World Trade Center collapses, 102 minutes after Flight 11 crashed into the building.

5:20 p.m.

Passengers and crew members aboard Flight 93 attempt to retake the plane from hijackers. In response to this attempt, the hijackers purposefully crash the plane into a field in Somerset County, Pennsylvania.

The 47-story World Trade Center collapses after hours of burning. Because the building was evacuated in the morning, there were no casualties, but the collapses forced workers to flee from the area.

Tom Gubbins woke up earlier than usual that Tuesday morning. It was before 9 a.m., and his radio was on and set to his typical station, one that would normally play “The Bob & Tom Show.” But, instead of the satirical humor he was used to listening to while getting ready, Gubbins heard announcements from CNN Radio, a station he didn’t know existed.

At first, he thought it was a new skit of Bob and Tom’s, but, after listening with closer attention, Gubbins realized something was off.

He quickly turned on his television, and, on every channel, he saw the twin towers — one standing as normal, the other billowing with smoke. The first plane had just hit the World Trade Center. It was Sept. 11, 2001.

Not a Normal Morning

Taylor Smith Editor-in-chief

Former Ball State Daily News staff members reflect on reporting the events of 9/11.

Lifestyles

This spread was inspired by the historic front page

Gail Werner, Ball State executive writer and 2004 alumna, was one of the chief reporters of The Daily News staff that year.

After getting ready for her history class that morning, Werner walked past a group of students gathered in front of the television in Botsford-Swinford Residence Hall.

“I remember asking myself, ‘Oh, I wonder what they’re watching,’” Werner said, “but I didn’t think anything of it.”

Werner boarded the shuttle bus she took to history class Tuesday mornings, one typically crowded with students chatting. That morning, Werner said, the bus was so quiet “you could hear a pin drop.”

“They had the news on,” Werner said, “and we were all just hearing them say a plane had hit the towers … I charged to [the Art and Journalism building] to see what was going on.”

Werner arrived to see her graphics class standing outside the newsroom, with her professor, Jennifer Palilonis, George and Frances Ball Distinguished Professor of Multimedia Journalism, explaining to her students, “there’s no place more important you need to be today than in the newsroom.”

Emmet Smith, 2003 Ball State alumnus and creative director of The Daily News during the 2001-02 academic year, woke up to a phone call from the newsroom that morning and the twin towers burning on his television. After being asked if he knew what was happening, Smith said, only one other question was asked before hanging up the phone.

“Jenn [Palilonis] wants to know, ‘why the hell you aren’t in here yet?’”

Palilonis had just started as a professor at Ball State three weeks earlier, after leaving the Chicago Sun-Times as the news design director. When she first heard the news, she said, it was hard for her to accept that she couldn’t be back in the newsroom.

“It didn’t feel right to be teaching in Muncie, Indiana,” Palilonis said. “I felt that itch that you have as a journalist to be in a newsroom covering this incredibly massive, horrifying news event. It was a weird feeling to not be there.”

“The newsroom is your classroom”

“I remember jumping into the shower, brushing my teeth with one hand and shaving with the other,” said Gubbins, 2002 Ball State alumnus and editor-in-chief of The Ball State Daily News for the 2001-02 academic year.

“I couldn’t get to the newsroom fast enough.”

The second plane hit as Gubbins left the old Phi Delta Theta house for the Art and Journalism building, running his normal route through the Quad to get to the newsroom.

“That walk — it was so surreal,” Gubbins said. “There was not a cloud in the sky.

Obviously, there wasn’t a plane in the sky. It felt weird. Nothing was moving.”

Gubbins was one of the first people in the newsroom that morning, as many people still didn’t know what was going on halfway across the country in New York. When Gubbins walked in, Marilyn Weaver, Ball State professor emerita, looked him in the eyes and said, “This is your classroom today. Get your staff in here — nobody goes to class.”

More than just the editorial board of The Daily News crowded into the newsroom that morning, Gubbins said, as junior and senior reporters, and even students who hadn’t stepped foot in the newsroom before, gathered to help report on 9/11.

“We all came together in that editorial meeting room and really just laid it out,” Gubbins said. “The magnitude wasn’t lost on us, but at the same time, nobody knew what was going on. We knew planes hit the twin towers and the Pentagon and that a plane was down in Pennsylvania. We didn’t know who did it, we didn’t know why — none of us did.

And the crazy thing is we had to look at it from a college student’s perspective. For all we know, we’re going to war.”

“Full-blown Electricity”

“Working with the students was a pretty amazing experience,” Palilonis said. “Having worked in two pretty big newsrooms prior to that, I felt I could bring my knowledge of covering news events in a newsroom to the students and to make it a learning experience for them. I was very proud of the work that they did and felt pretty strongly that they were as talented as any professional I had ever worked with.”

For members of The Daily News staff that year, while working in the newsroom on that day has since become a blur, having the guidance of Palilonis is something people like Smith will never forget.

“The thing I remember the most from that day is Jenn Palilonis just sort of taking control and saying, ‘Look, you need to do this, you need to do this, you need to do this,’” Smith said. “She really helped us understand what we needed to be doing as journalists that day.”

When it came to putting out a paper every weeknight, the staff of The Daily News had a set plan. Each member of the team knew what to do, but Smith said this print night was full of unknowns.

“The Daily News is sort of this machine that runs on repeat,” Smith said, “but not on that day, because none of us had ever seen something like this before.”

For a team built entirely of college students, some of which had no prior reporting experience, Gubbins said, more than just the reporting process was on their minds.

‘Is the military draft about to be implemented again?’ they wondered.

No one had the answers, but as a team of student journalists, Gubbins said, it was their job to find them.

“It was an effort where everyone contributed, and everyone brought their A-game,” Gubbins said. “If you look at that edition [of The Daily News], there’s barely any wire copy in there. It’s almost entirely

- TOM GUBBINS, 2002 Ball State alumnus and editor-in-chief of The Ball State Daily News for the 2001-02 academic year

“It was full-blown electricity. Everybody was working. I’ve never seen us do so many rewrites. People wanted their copy top-notch, the photographers wanted their images perfect.

The designers — oh, my God, we blew up that front page probably five times.

It had to be right.”

After taking time to process what she was watching live on the news, Palilonis said, the shocked and stunned feelings left as she “immediately” realized she had to get to work — not to teach her classes, but to help the students of The Daily News.

“At that moment in time, [being in the newsroom] was the only thing I knew to do,” Palilonis said. “There’s no way I could’ve stood in front of a class and taught color theory that day.”

For the next 72 hours, Palilonis spent nearly every minute in the newsroom, only returning home to change her clothes and get food. Besides those small amounts of time, she was advising students on what she considers to be one of the most real-life newsroom experiences journalism students have ever had.

4See JOURNALISTS, 18

produced by us.”

But, Werner said, the reporting process wasn’t easy. There was no social media feed to keep track of the events unfolding and nowhere to turn to find sources who could contribute to the reporting of that day by providing eyewitness accounts. For the staff of The Daily News, it was all hands on deck.

“We gathered a lot of our information from the morning shows,” Werner said. “I remember having the “Today” show on. We were writing and calling people and gathering quotes. It was just a different time.”

While there was plenty of information available from different news outlets, Werner said, the challenge was finding a way to localize it and make it suitable for the Ball State and Muncie audience. Werner took a man-on-the-street approach to her story that day, interviewing faculty and students around campus to get their reaction to the event and localize her angle.

“I went out and just started talking to people,” Werner said. “There was no rhyme or reason to how I talked to people because, on that day, everybody was affected. I just framed it in the context of, ‘This is one of the events you’re never going to forget where you were when you heard the news.’ I just wanted to capture what faculty and students had to say of how shocked they were.”

While The Daily News had access to The Associated Press (AP), Gubbins said the staff was limited on its access to photos. But, after a call with the AP bureau in Indianapolis, the team received free access to all photos taken and published by AP that day.

“There were thousands of photos,” Gubbins said, “some of which have probably never been printed. I was seeing live photos come in through the photo wire — people falling from the sky, body parts, just horrific images. And it took a toll on me a little bit — those were some of the most graphic, just emotionally heavy images I’ve ever seen.”

The newsroom at the time was nearly half the size as it is now, Werner said, but it was a “constant flurry of people in and out” as the team worked on piecing together what has since become a historical edition of The Daily News.

“It was full-blown electricity,” Gubbins said. “Everybody was working. I’ve never seen us do so many rewrites. People wanted their copy top-notch, the photographers wanted their images perfect. The designers — oh my God, we blew up that front page probably five times. It had to be right.”

Besides the editorial board, Gubbins said, people were constantly stopping by the newsroom with questions about what had happened, story leads to follow and updates on the events unfolding. Without social media, there was nowhere else for people to go.

Smoke billows from one of the towers of the World Trade Center as flames and debris explodes from the second tower in New York. A bill passed by Congress allowing the families of 9/11 victims to sue the Saudi government has reinforced to some in the Arab world a long-held view that the U.S. only demands justice for its own victims of terrorism, despite decades of controversial U.S. interventions around the world. AP PHOTO, CHAO SOI CHEONG, FILE

of the Sept. 12, 2001, edition of The Ball State Daily News. Please turn the paper to read the story in full effect.

DNRemembers 09.09.21

12

MAGGIE GETZIN, DN

News

-Staff Reports

13 09.09.21 DNRemembers Source: The Never Forget Project; History.com; National Fallen Firefighters Association; Officer Down Memorial Page; World Memorial Medic Tribute; The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey

DNRemembers

09.09.21

14

Opinion

WHAT WAS IT ALL FOR? KAMRYN TOMLINSON, DN FLICKR; TNS, PHOTO COURTESY

Gen Z is left to grapple with the effects of 9/11 and the war it spawned well into their adult lives.

09.09.21

15

DNRemembers

Even with its presence throughout the entirety of our child and adult lives, what stake could my generation possibly hope to have in a battle they never asked for?”

Opinion Editor, “Fine Print”

UNDER 5

AGES 5-9

AGES 10- 14

6.8% 19,175,798

7.3% 20,549,505

7.3% 20,528,072

Source: United States Census

DID AMERICA HELP?

Public opinion on whether the U.S. achieved its goals in Afghanistan

Mostly failed Succeeded

27%

69%

Source: Pew Research Center

East have been a stain on our international image and a drain on our resources. More importantly, it’s been a cultural wedge that has only worsened our divided political mind — according to research by the Pew Research Center, 54 percent of Americans say the U.S. was right to withdraw from Afghanistan, while 42 percent supported staying.

Let that sink in: even after 20 years and clear evidence that our interventions have had very limited lasting positive effects in the region, a significant portion of Americans still want to try the same thing, expecting a different outcome.

$2 TRILLION

is the estimated cost that the United States has accumulated from the war in Afghanistan, as of 2020.

Source: Associated Press

That’s shocking, considering the widespread failures it has caused at home and abroad.

Estimates by The Associated Press (AP) of the current cost of the war place the U.S.’s spending on war-related costs in Afghanistan

and Iraq since 2001 at around $2 trillion — good for a cool $300 million for every day the United States stayed in the country.

Afghan civilians

5 24

2,448

U.S. Military As of April

Human cost of the war

IN AFGHANISTAN

,1

51

IN 2001

Even with its presence throughout the entirety of our child and adult lives, what stake could my generation possibly hope to have in a battle they never asked for?

America and its allies’ efforts in the Middle

66,000

ADOLESCENT POPULATION

The same cannot be said for people my age, members of what we would call Gen Z. In September of 2000, my parents visited a family member who was living in New York City at the time. During their trip, they toured the World Trade Center and brought me with them. As I was just 5 months old at the time, I can’t remember anything about the visit, but the fact I was there just a year before the tragedy has been treated with a certain level of reverence among people older than me.

That was difficult for me to understand.

Unlike our millennial predecessors, very few people my age can remember what 9/11 was like, much less describe the way it made us feel. We were, however, left to grapple with its effects from the moment we were able to form memories.

Many people my age learned what the war on terror was in simplistic, morally black-andwhite terms, only to be stuck with the war on terror and its effects for the entirety of our childhood and transition to early adulthood. As we grew and changed, so too did the war.

America’s mission in the Middle East began relatively simply: Bring the perpetrators of 9/11 to justice. That mission dragged on for years until Osama bin Laden, the leader of al-Qaida and the leader behind the attacks, was killed in 2011.

That, I do remember. I was in fifth grade May 2, 2011, when it was announced that a team of Navy SEALs had found and killed bin Laden in Pakistan. I remember watching the news with my parents and seeing then-President Barack Obama tell the nation that the hunt for alQaida’s leader had ended.

I remember thinking at the time: “Great, the war is over! We won!” How wrong I was.

During my middle and high school years, the prominence of the United States’ mission began to diminish. Sure, there were signs of progress in the region like the expansion of human rights for women and girls and the beginnings of a U.S.-sponsored democratic government, but the shadow of the U.S.’s hand was ever-present. I became more politically conscious and began to resent the war’s length.

Now, the mission is over, and there is painfully little to show for it. As of Aug. 15, 2021, the Taliban are back in control of Afghanistan. Any “progress” that was made in the region is being undone, and there’s very little we can do about it. While President Joe Biden has committed to helping people leave the country via diplomatic missions, our efforts in the region are effectively finished.

For as long as I can remember, our country has been playing nation-builder in Afghanistan, but our motivations were never fully within my grasp. I think that experience is common among plenty of people who never saw the towers fall.

47 ,

JOHN LYNCH

John Lynch is a senior journalism news major and writes “Fine Print” for The Daily News.

His views do not necessarily reflect those of the newspaper.

Everyone above a certain age can remember where they were on 9/11.

That’s not hyperbole — I’ve never met someone above the age of 30 who can’t remember where they were, what they were doing or how they reacted to the events of Sept. 11, 2001.

91

Taliban fighters

Afghan military and police Source: Associated Press

More importantly, the human cost of the war has been grotesque. According to AP, thousands of combatants and civilians alike were killed over the 20-year war. Even the withdrawal has not been without bloodshed, as 13 U.S. service members and 60 Afghans were killed at the Kabul Airport by a bombing by the Islamic State Aug. 26.

Look, there is a lot to criticize about the way the withdrawal from Afghanistan has gone so far, from former President Donald Trump’s deal with the Taliban to the Biden administration’s inability to prevent the Taliban’s takeover of the country during the withdrawal. But, at the end of the day, removing our presence in Afghanistan was the right thing to do.

Twenty years of futile warfare have proven this point. My generation, perhaps more than any other, is tired of this war and its effects. The best we can do now is to provide aid to those in the region who want it and to move on as a nation.

The failures of the United States in Afghanistan have revealed to many people my age the flaws in our country’s priorities and the system that has chosen imperialist goals over our domestic welfare. My generation has never known the fire that motivated our predecessors to embark on this foreign policy disaster in the first place, and, now that it’s over, all we’re left with is the smoke of our national shame.

Contact John Lynch with comments at jplynch@bsu.edu or on Twitter @WritesLynch.

DNRemembers

09.09.21

MILES 16

KAMRYN TOMLINSON, DN

News

OF

SEPARATION

Muncie community members reflect on personal experiences in Afghanistan and the future of the country under Taliban control.

Grace McCormick News Editor When she was just 13 years old, Bibi Bahrami saw her home become a place too dangerous to live. Her friends and family had to evacuate the Behsood district of eastern Afghanistan to live as refugees in Pakistan after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979.

Bahrami witnessed death and devastation, as she lost a brother, three cousins and her grandfather.

“Eighty percent of the country was destroyed by the Soviet invasion,” she said. “I came to the U.S. in 1986 and went to school, got myself educated and had the mission to give back to those girls left behind.”

Though she didn’t know what would happen next in her family’s journey, Bahrami always thought about the people who were unable to escape Afghanistan. After moving to the United States, she started studying for her GED diploma and began to think about how she could help Afghan women and girls receive education of their own.

In 2002, Bahrami founded the nonprofit Afghan Women’s and Kids’ Education and Necessities (AWAKEN) to help people in the Behsood district of Afghanistan with primary education and healthcare needs, as well as offer financial support to students and other citizens. While living in Muncie and still in the middle of completing her associate’s degree in general arts at Ball State, Bahrami saw the early 2000s as the best time to get involved in providing education and healthcare to women and children. The United States’ defeat of the Taliban in November 2001 was an opportunity to be involved in rebuilding Afghanistan, Bahrami said.

“President [George W.] Bush, during that time, said no Taliban members were out, so after 9/11 was an opportunity during that time to have hope for a better tomorrow,” she said. “Education was a huge part of that, and it was a huge

I’m a very positive person, and I still hope that the Taliban learns from their previous record that people are so afraid of what they did to people that they are scared to go out of their houses. I hope and pray that they will take care of these human beings … The solution is not getting rid of certain groups but to respect and understand each other.”

- BIBI BAHRAMI, Founder and President of Afghan Women’s and Kids’ Education and Necessities part of my mission for Afghan women — who have suffered tremendously during the Soviet invasion, the Taliban and during some other rulers. They are the ones left behind with no education to provide for their family.”

Though the Taliban was not responsible for the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, members were accused of harboring alQaida’s leader, Osama bin Laden, which prompted a U.S. military invasion. NATO deployed troops to secure Kabul, Afghanistan,

and surrounding areas in 2003, but the Taliban resurfaced with an increase in the number of suicide bombings in 2006.

The U.S. occupied Afghanistan until Aug. 30, 2021. This troop withdrawal deadline, which former President Donald Trump hoped would be May 1, was met under President Joe Biden. The Taliban took control of Kabul Aug. 16 and has seized power in other cities since then.

In a July 8 press conference, Biden said the U.S. military had provided Afghan military members with equipment, training and the financial support they need to sustain control of their cities. He said the Afghan military was well-equipped for self-defense against the Taliban and that U.S. withdrawal was long overdue.

“As I said in April, the United States did what we went to do in Afghanistan — to get the terrorists who attacked us on 9/11 and to deliver justice to Osama bin Laden, and to degrade the terrorist threat to keep Afghanistan from becoming a base from which attacks could be continued against the United States,” Biden said. “We achieved those objectives — that’s why we went. We did not go to Afghanistan to nation-build. It’s the right and the responsibility of the Afghan people alone to decide their future and how they want to run their country.”

Bahrami said she is grateful to see U.S. support for Afghanistan, but there is still violence from the Taliban many people must overcome to return to their regular lives.

“There is still so much need, and people are still living in fear in Afghanistan,” Bahrami said. “Millions of Afghans have been displaced from their homes. The Taliban now have full control of the airport and are not letting people enter the airport to leave the country. Economically, Afghanistan has been dependent on foreign aid for the past 20 years, and, if this aid does not continue, millions will suffer even more.”

Amid the crisis in cities and villages across Afghanistan, Bahrami said AWAKEN is still operating its health clinic, though it has temporarily stopped its vocational training program.

“We are seeing, sometimes, more than 180 patients each day,” she said. “We’re a very small organization compared to others, but we have been able to help thousands.”

Bahrami said some women who usually work at AWAKEN’s Behsood Health Clinic didn’t want to come into work, fearing the Taliban would target them for being in public without a male relative.

“These women and children had hoped for the last 20 years, at least, that things would be better for them,” Bahrami said. “All those

17 hopes are just gone. I want everybody to do their best to make it better for women and children. I hope God can help us and prayer can help us, but, at a human level, we owe it to those people to continue our work with education and healthcare.”

Even before the Taliban took control of Afghanistan this past month, extremist views on women’s behavior were prevalent throughout the country, said Cheri Madewell, Ball State director of instructional consultation in the Division of Online and Strategic Learning.

Madewell worked as a gender specialist as part of a grant project conducted by Ball State and Kabul University in 2016. During her time in Kabul, Madewell said women she spoke to were afraid of experiencing violence if they wished to work as professionals outside their homes.

“I spoke to young Afghan female students during my time in Afghanistan, and they expressed ongoing anxiety from being harassed walking to campus to take classes,” Madewell said via email. “For women who want to teach university courses, it is a challenge to convince the families of female teachers to allow them to instruct at the university.”

While women could legally travel by themselves and attend classes, Madewell said she spoke with women who were asked to pay bribes to receive their diplomas or enter job interviews.

“Building — and re-building — Afghanistan infrastructure is slow work,” she said. “This was the case when I was there, and, undoubtedly, it was still the case years later, to the present day. I think it’s hard to fully grasp the hoops Afghans must jump through and endure as a result of serious corruption broadly employed throughout the country.”

Bahrami estimated she receives between 30-50 phone calls every day from people who work with AWAKEN. They give her updates on what is happening under Taliban rule, ask her for personal help applying for U.S. visas and share their fears while they still hope to help women and children.

“In other parts of the country, Afghans associated with the U.S. or with the previous government have been targeted, and some [have

Afghan refugees

DISPLACED 2.2 M

Source: United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees

Fled to Iran and Pakistan

2.6 M Afghan refugees worldwide

Internally Displaced

3.5 M

09.09.21

DNRemembers

Afghan women take part in a protest march for their rights under Taliban rule in the downtown area of Kabul Sept. 3. The Taliban has a history of oppressing women by only allowing them in public while dressing modestly and being escorted by a male relative. HOSHANG HASHIMI/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES/TNS, PHOTO COURTESY been] killed,” Bahrami said. “We hope and pray that all violence against Afghans stops, whether it’s from the U.S. or from the Taliban, and that we can continue to provide aid through [non-governmental organizations] like AWAKEN.” Though she is doing her best to help her family and friends apply for visas, Bahrami said, application reviews are experiencing a backlog. Even some who are U.S. citizens are unable to leave the country.

“My husband — he’s a citizen — and he went to the airport two or three times and was kicked out,” Bahrami said. “He was supposed to be here [in Muncie] — we have a family wedding, and he is not able to come back. He went through so much difficulty, and it’s such an unfortunate situation.”

Multiple people fell to their deaths near the Kabul airport Aug. 16 after holding onto the wings of military jets as the U.S. evacuated some troops. Witnesses told The Associated Press hundreds of people were trapped in the Kabul airport, with U.S. military attempting to clear the airport and the Taliban attempting to keep people inside.

More recently, the Taliban halted the takeoff of four planes at the Mazar-e-Sharif airport after promising to let people with proper passports and paperwork leave the country.

“The Taliban has said they will work with people and let them go back to work [and] get an education, and I hope and pray that they will follow that,” Bahrami said. “I hope for a better tomorrow always, but people are very scared.”

Larry Gerstein, director of Ball State’s Center of Peace and Conflict Studies, said he is most concerned for the safety of community organization leaders in Afghanistan, including employees of U.S.-led educational institutions.

“Additionally, I am extremely concerned about educated and professionally successful women and girls,” he said via email, “and females that gained some degree of independence and power prior to the U.S. leaving.”

Gerstein said he is skeptical of the Taliban’s promises they will restore the rights of women gained before the group took control of the country.

“I also think the Taliban will be faced with many challenges from the outside if they completely suppress women and girls and the entire population,” Gerstein said. “Afghanistan will be isolated from almost all of the world powers, and the Taliban will struggle to meet the basic needs of the Afghan people.”

While the U.S. invested significant money, time and lives into the Afghanistan War, Gerstein said he doesn’t think it was all wasted.

He said he respects members of the U.S. military for planting seeds for a better future for Afghanistan and thinks positive relationships between Afghanistan citizens and U.S. military were formed during the past two decades.

“I hope that channels of communication will remain open between the Taliban and the U.S,” Gerstein said. “I also hope that the U.S., including Indiana and Muncie, will strongly and openly support the Afghan people and provide them with opportunities to relocate here, become gainfully employed, affiliated with our educational institutions — including Ball State — and assist them in establishing productive and happy lives.”

Current life throughout Afghanistan is still chaotic, Bahrami said, as people are unsure of what the Taliban will do next and where to find the safest spots for shelter. She is also scared for the future but hopes AWAKEN can continue its work amid Taliban rule.

“I’m a very positive person, and I still hope that the Taliban learns from their previous record that people are so afraid of what they did to people that they are scared to go out of their houses,” Bahrami said. “I hope and pray that they will take care of these human beings … The solution is not getting rid of certain groups but to respect and understand each other.”

Contact Grace McCormick with comments at grmccormick@bsu. edu or on Twitter @graceMc564.

DNRemembers

09.09.21

18

JOURNALISTS Continued from Page 11

“I’ll never forget — there was a kid that came running into the newsroom hysterical,” Gubbins said. “He kept saying, ‘Oh, my god!

They got Dayton! They got Dayton!’ He was on the phone with his girlfriend, who was a student at the University of Dayton. All of a sudden, he heard an explosion, and his girlfriend’s phone went dead.”

While scrambling to help his team, Gubbins said, he made a phone call to the Ohio State Police out of Dayton. As a newspaper editor, he said, he knew he had to follow up on any lead that came through the newsroom doors that day.

The Wright-Patterson Air Force Base is located just east of Dayton, Ohio, and to help fight the hijackers, the base deployed a handful of fighter jets. The planes broke the sound barrier.

“We had people in the newsroom that were ready to go,” Gubbins said. “Dayton’s an hour or two away from Muncie, and they were ready. They were ready to hop in the car and go. We were kids, we were scared, but we all wanted to be the most professional journalists we could be.”

“Freedom Under Fire”

past her carrying the newspaper she had worked until midnight to make possible — a paper which, on a normal morning, was only carried by a handful of students.

“The front cover of that issue is seared into my brain,” Werner said.

“It just reminded me of the role of the press and how important what we do is to people. We’re the eyes onto what happens, even from this far out.”

For Smith, he said, walking around campus that day and seeing students with the paper in their hands made him realize that his work “does matter.”

“That was my first experience of one of those really big news days,” Smith said. “Seeing that the next day — it was incredibly gratifying.”

The Newseum in Washington, D.C., archived and compiled more than 100 newspaper front pages from Sept. 12, 2001. The Daily News was one of the only college papers on display. Later, the Society of Professional Journalists compiled a book of front covers for Sept.

11, and The Daily News’ cover was included.

“It was interesting as a student to go and look through the Newseum and see how other papers had covered it,” Smith said. “I said, ‘All right, I think we got this stuff right.’”

For Palilonis, looking back at the success of the Sept. 12, 2001, edition of The Daily News “shows how incredibly talented they all are and were.”

“We’re not talking about professional journalists who’ve had 20 years of experience covering hard stuff,” Palilonis said. “We’re talking about 20-year-olds who have never done anything like that before, and the fact that they rose to the occasion and did such impressive work, so much so that it was recognized by other journalists — that’s pretty impressive.

“I think it just speaks volumes about how committed they were to their craft and how mature they really were to be able, in that moment, to cut through the grief and the devastation and fear that we were all feeling that day and do a job so well,” she said. “I think that’s a pretty amazing thing for any journalist to say they’ve done, let alone a bunch of kids.”

The process of putting together what has since become a legendary cover page of The Daily News, Gubbins said, was one that required effort from the entire team, as the cover was redesigned half a dozen times before being sent to the printer late that night.

“I don’t remember who came up with ‘Freedom Under Fire,’” Gubbins said, “but what we loved about that was that no one else did it. There were all kinds of newspapers where everybody kind of did the same thing. Ours was reflective, but it told the story.”

Smith was on the design team that night, working closely with Palilonis and other members of The Daily News on a front cover that had gone through dozens of changes throughout the day.

“In our blood” “We asked ourselves, ‘What is this headline saying? What is the mix of stories here?’’’ Smith said. “I remember working a lot on the While Palilonis couldn’t be in the Chicago Sun-Times newsroom graphic for it, trying to figure out what needed to be in there, but there reporting on the events of that morning, she took it upon herself was endless discussion on what that headline would mean.” to make The Daily News her newsroom for the next three days, advising and guiding the staff members through the process of covering hard news.

It just reminded me of the role If there was ever a doubt in her mind that teaching was something she was meant to do, Palilonis said, the events of Sept. 11, 2001, of the press and how important “certainly solidified it for me.” what we do is to people. We’re “It didn’t really matter to me that I wasn’t the one doing the the eyes onto what happens, reporting,” she said. “I think that what was significant for me is that I was able to share my experience and my knowledge of how even from this far out.” a newsroom works with students in a way that is different from the - GAIL WERNER, average, everyday operation of a student newspaper.”

Chief reporter for The Daily News from 2001-02 Reflecting on the events of that day, Gubbins, Werner and Smith are all grateful for the help Palilonis provided during the process At that point in the day, The Daily News staff didn’t know much of piecing the Sept. 12, 2001, edition of The Daily News together. besides planes being hijacked and the World Trade Center coming “I think, without her that day, we would have been a bunch down. The number of people who had died, “the bigger story that of shell-shocked kids wandering around the newsroom trying to we sort of take for granted in knowing today,” Smith said, was still figure out what to do,” Smith said. “She really led the way for us in unclear. one of the most impressive displays of teaching I have ever seen.”

For Smith, having the guidance and help of Palilonis in his design Smith said having the opportunity to have worked in a newsroom process is something he didn’t take for granted. with so much potential for learning and growth is one he will never “Jenn hadn’t been through 9/11, but she had been through big news take for granted, especially having Palilonis as a mentor. before, and her experience as a journalist, and her ability to help us “I love the fact that I went to school at a place that gave us the shake out of the moment and focus on what needed to be done, I opportunity to practice and to learn at that level,” Smith said. “I think, was what was very valuable there,” Smith said. “From a design don’t think that every journalism student in the world gets the kind standpoint, we knew the mechanics of what to do, but Jenn really just of opportunity that we got that day.” helped us focus in and work through the journalism and through the If the staff of The Daily News that year were to have a reunion, stories and through the framings and put it all together.”

Werner said, the first and only thing they would talk about is putting On the morning of Sept. 12, students all around campus were that edition of the paper together. It was a paper, Gubbins said, carrying the 9/11 edition of The Daily News in their hands with the that they likely all still have copies of, tucked away somewhere in headline “FREEDOM UNDER FIRE” in bold, black letters across the boxes or on their shelves. top of every front page.

“It’s one of those editions that you wish you never had made,” It was surreal, Werner said, seeing nearly every person who walked Smith said. “It’s not a part of history that I think anyone wants

to celebrate or repeat, but I am grateful for the group of people, especially, that we got to put that out with and work with that day, and Jenn for her guidance.”

Putting the paper together, Gubbins said, “brought the absolute very best out of everyone on that staff.” To this day, he said, it “blows [him] away” how a handful of students took “every ounce of professional journalism” they had within them to bring that paper to fruition.

Each and every one of them, Palilonis said, left the newsroom changed and with a better understanding of what it means to be a journalist.

“Our jobs as journalists are to cover the story, no matter how hard it is personally or professionally,” Palilonis said. “It’s in our blood to do that. There’s really no other place for you to be. You have to be in the newsroom and bring the news to life. It really is in our blood.”

Contact Taylor Smith with comments at tnsmith6@bsu.edu or on Twitter @taywrites.

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