By Doug White
Poynter.org Intern

"This is the worst news day ever," said Martin Frobisher, a designer with the St. Petersburg Times web team. "September 11. I'll remember this day forever. This is like Pearl Harbor."

Despite the horror, he says the newsroom is working together on this terrible day of tragedy after tragedy.

"Everyone's focused," Frobisher said. "Some people, of course, are upset. But everybody's focused on the coverage of this event and what's going to happen."

Sue Morrow, director of photography, said she's operating on auto-pilot.

"You do your job first," she said. "There have been moments of shock and horror. People are teary-eyed in the newsroom but they move forward and get the job done. People feel it. I'm feeling it.

"There's a photo editor with family in New York and she can't get through," Morrow said. She's stressing. There are good team workers pitching in to do their jobs."

Graphic Choices

Times photojournalists were deployed to Tampa International Airport, and the Times had a photographer covering President Bush in Sarasota. Throughout the day and night, the staff will cover church and community gatherings.

"We're covering all our bases," Morrow said.

What dominant photo will run on the Times front page?

"I don't know yet, we haven't seen all the photos," said Morrow, adding that more graphic images may be appropriate during a national crisis of this magnitude.

"We need to show the stark reality of a world changed," she said. "Our world has changed as we know it in the United States. I'd stay away from corpses without limbs. But I can't say."

Not Business As Usual

"We're trying to figure out how (the terrorism) is affecting business here," said business reporter Jounice L. Nealy-Brown.

"We're localizing it," she said. "We're calling the phone company, Raymond James Financial, and other businesses. We're calling travel agents. Lots of Floridians go to New York and lots of New Yorkers come here. How are ATMs affected? What's the economic impact? Those are other business angles. On a larger scale because the market closed, the pages for the market can now go to the A section and the B section."

A travel agent gave Nealy-Brown another story idea: The significance of September 11, 9-11.

She has asked library researchers to look into why and how 9-1-1 was chosen to signify an emergency.

An "Oh My God Day"

News researcher Caryn Baird has been with the Times for two years. She says this is her first "Oh My God day."

Like news researchers from media organizations across the nation, Baird is inundated with questions related to today's news.

Here are some questions Baird and fellow researcher Kathy Wos report receiving today:

• When was the last hijacking of a U.S. plane?
• When did airport security begin?
• Who are experts on terrorism and post-traumatic stress disorder?
• What are the dimensions of the World Trade Center?
• What is the historical context of the Camp David Accords?
• Were there prior security problems at Boston's Logan airport?
• What are the schematics of the airplanes involved in the crashes?
• What catering companies worked for American and United Airlines?
• What was the last documented case of human rights violations in the Middle East?
  

Baird, Wos and the Times other researchers have answered these questions with the help of "Newslib," a listserve for news librarians and researchers. "Today it's been especially helpful because we're all so overloaded," Wos said. "Across the country, despite being competitors, we're all helping each other."

War of the Worlds

Roger Fischer couldn't believe the words popping up on his screen. The St. Petersburg Times online editor said the headlines were unthinkable.

• Twin World Trade Center towers leveled after being hit by airliners
• Pentagon also attacked, evacuated
• Domestic air traffic grounded
• Large jet crashes in rural western Pennsylvania

"I started writing one headline after another and I couldn't believe it," he said. "Any one of these headlines would have been huge. This is like Orson Welles's War of the Worlds.

As gruesome photographs continued to flood over the wire, Fischer said he couldn't stop thinking about his family.

"I'm thinking about my kid at day care," he said. "I'm thinking about my wife at work. I want them to be here."

"This is Pearl Harbor, in terms of modern day journalism." he continued. "Life as we know it is over. How many people won't sleep tonight in the United States?"

Around noon, the Times website was getting four times the traffic it normally gets. Omar Schwanzer, the Times senior technology consultant, said the Times recently upgraded and the server and network held up well.

A Giant Rubik's Cube

Tuesday is normally a day full of meetings for the St. Petersburg Times online department.

"We do advance work on feature sections," said Steve Spears, a Times online news editor. "I was planning to work all day in facilitating a reader chat session with sports columnist Gary Shelton."

That was cancelled an hour after the first World Trade Center crash.

The entire staff's schedule has been reshuffled. Six designers and editors gathered to discuss rotating schedules as staffers tried to figure out who would watch their kids.

"This is a huge deal and throws everything into disarray," Spears said. "It's a giant Rubik's Cube to adequately staff the department. We're a relatively small staff, four editors and four artists. We're not sitting here with 30 to 50 people like some newsrooms.

"When something like this happens, we want to be here," he continued. "None of us want to leave. Leaving would be like asking the coach to take us out of the fourth quarter of the Super Bowl. It's probably the biggest news story any of us will ever be associated with."

Spears said the atmosphere is similar to last year's Election Night.

"The energy and fatigue today is remarkably like Election Night when Florida was the deciding vote. Nobody wanted to leave then either, but we had to send people home because we need them fresh at 6 a.m. tomorrow."

Spears said the gravity of the situation hasn't sunk in.

"Right now I'm so concerned that we get it right, I haven't personally thought about the significance of what we're typing. It sank in a little bit when I looked at our extra edition, but I imagine it will really sink in when tomorrow's edition comes out."

TV, TV, TV

Television critic Eric Deggans sat in front of four TVs and watched the horror all day. He wrote a story about a terrorist act that seemed staged for maximum news coverage.

He managed his day by toggling between immersion and disengagement.

"A day like today is horrible with the logistics of keeping up," he said. "I've seen the plane crash a hundred times, I've seen the building collapse a hundred times."

From 9 a.m. until 1 p.m., Deggans said he was glued to the various TV sets.

"Before I started writing I had to take a step away and decompress," he said. "The initial realization of what had happened was very emotional. I was at the World Trade Center two years ago. To see it crumble, with thousands dead...It's intense."

After he completed his first draft, he actually left the office.

"I just sat outside the building," he said. "It was raining but I didn't care."

All Ideas Welcomed

Twenty-six Times editors gathered to discuss the paper's coverage of today's events at a 3:30 news meeting led by managing editor Neil Brown.

The budget items were broken down into sections.

Sections included:

• Main wrap-up with stories on air security, President Bush in Sarasota, terrorism, intelligence, local MacDill Air Force base, precautions, world reaction.
• New York -- NY scenes, NY victims, World Trade Building, the Mayor's comments.
• Washington -- Pentagon, D.C. scene, the dead in D.C.
• Florida/Tampa Bay -- Florida response, local response, local victims or family members, local Muslim community.
• Economic/travel impact -- airlines, airport, phones, financial market.
• Emotional reaction -- local anxiety. spiritual reaction, reaction in schools, people giving blood, various columnists.

"We need to capture an extraordinary day, but be as forward-thinking as we can," said Brown. He also added that all ideas were welcome. "Let's not assume we've thought of everything. Bring all ideas."

Going Against the Grain

"Even on this Tuesday, amid the hatred and death of the world, this floor was an oasis of love and happiness."

So began a story by Times feature writer Jeff Klinkenberg.

Amidst all the hard news stories, Klinkenberg doesn't know if his story will ever see the light of day, but he wanted to contribute to his newspaper's coverage of today's terrorist attack. However, he didn't go to a local bar or gym for reaction.

He went to Bayfront Medical Center's maternity ward to write about the start of life on a day of death.

"I tried to come up with something at a real grass-roots level," he said. "I was looking for something different. "I didn't know what I'd find, but maternity wards tend to be happy places."