At the time of Sept. 11, 2001, I was a news editor at The Philadelphia Inquirer, in charge of organizing and laying out the “A” or front section of the paper except the front page. It required the news judgment, photo selection, and page-layout skills I developed in the 21 years since graduating from St. Bonaventure University.

The Inquirer was a morning paper, so I worked from 6 p.m. to 2:30 am. That meant I slept late every morning, but not on Sept. 11. My father-in-law, who was retired from a career on Wall Street, woke me with a 10 a.m. phone call.

“Do you see what’s going on? Turn on the TV.”

Wiping the sleep from my eyes, I struggled to make sense of the video images. Smoke pouring from each of the Twin Towers. Replays of the two jetliners crashing into the buildings. People running from the scene, while the newscasters and analysts tried to explain the unthinkable. 

I watched the network broadcasts for a few hours, learning of the attack on the Pentagon and the plane crash in western Pennsylvania. Then I decided I better get to work immediately. 

At 2 p.m., the dayside editors were putting together budgets, or lists of stories. They increased the size of the A section by 20 pages — a huge amount of space since there were no ads on them. They assigned a few editors to help me with the expanded coverage, but I oversaw the overall product. I looked at every photo and graphic to link them to the appropriate story. We had several editions through the night, and I kept getting the most up-to-date content into the paper. 

One of my toughest and most controversial decisions was to run a photo nearly half a broadsheet newspaper page showing people who had jumped from the flaming, smoking Towers, captured in midair. The people’s images were tiny — not identifiable — but I thought the photo was important to use because there already were reports of conflicting instructions to trapped workers: stay in place, go to the roof, or use the stairwells. The people in this photo were only a few of many who were forced to make such an overwhelming choice. 

Many readers and even some coworkers criticized our publishing of this photo, but my bosses and colleagues backed me up. 

After a few days, the expanded coverage was left to me, but I was zoned in. When I wasn’t working, I was watching network news to keep on top of developments. In the newsroom, I dealt with the reporters, story editors, photo editors, and graphic artists to make sure we had the latest updates. 

About a month after the attacks, a boss called me into a conference room. Most of my colleagues were there, with a display of dozens of pages of our 9/11 coverage. My boss said we had done an outstanding job and that I had designed most of the pages. He later gave me a bonus for my work.

I was zoned in throughout that time for a couple of reasons: my instincts as a newspaper man and my connection to the elements of the stories. It was no coincidence that I live in Lower Bucks County, Pennsylvania, where the largest number of victims lived. I didn’t know any of them, but I was determined to do my best work for them and their families. And our readers.

Bill Reed retired from the Philadelphia Inquirer in 2020.

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Categories: 9/11, Jandoli Institute, Media