How do you mark the 11th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks? For some papers in the cities where the attacks took place, the answer is subtle: It’s time to move on. At The New York Times and the New York Post, Sept. 11, 2012, is just another day. Both papers ignored the anniversary entirely on their front pages. New York Times Public Editor Margaret Sullivan wrote in a blog post Tuesday, “The pain, the outrage, the loss – these never fade. The amount of journalism, however, must.” Sullivan spoke with two Times editors who noted the difficulty of “anniversary journalism.” (Sullivan will be participating in a live chat on this topic today at 2:30 ET. You can join the chat below or here.)
“You look for an angle that has news value,” Deputy Metropolitan Editor Wendell Jamieson told her, “and you ask can we mark this day in a creative, exciting and journalistically meaningful way.”
In an appearance on “Morning Joe” last month, New York Times editor Jill Abramson acknowledged that the Times is “less of a New York paper than it was when I was growing up here and addicted to reading it.”
She said at the time:
New York is still part of our DNA and important to the soul of the publication, but the actual metro area has, over time, been not the main part of our print readership. And online it’s more of an international and national audience.
The Times did link to a 9/11 story on its homepage early Tuesday morning and then featured a remembrance more prominently a bit later.
At other New York papers, Citi provides The Wall Street Journal’s front-page coverage, with an ad. And the Daily News blows out its front with a rendering of One World Trade Center, still under construction.
Long Island’s Newsday and the Newark, N.J., Star-Ledger also serve readerships that were heavily affected by the attacks; both turn their fronts over to 9/11 coverage. The Washington Post runs only a small photo of a smoking World Trade Center, and nothing from the nearby Pentagon, on the bottom left of its front page. And the Somerset, Pa., Daily American, which serves the area where Flight 93 went down, fronts two photos of remembrances at the memorial in Shanksville, Pa.
A selection of today’s front pages is below. || Poll: Is it time to move 9/11 off front pages? || Related: 11 years later, the most striking front pages since 9/11 | Front pages from 2001 to 2011 tell story of 9/11 decade | The 25 most moving 9/11/11 front pages | 10 iconic images from Sept. 11, 2001 | Why do newspapers use different figures for fatalities of Sept. 11 attacks? | How we started calling the former World Trade Center ‘ground zero’ | Sept. 11 style guidelines from AP
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Join New York Times Public Editor Margaret Sullivan and Charles Apple at 2:30 ET today for a discussion of the role of today’s front pages.
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