By JORDAN GREEN, Editor-in-Chief
Word of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in New York didn’t take long to reach Alva.
In the next day’s edition of the Newsgram, a local publication mailed to homes and businesses in the area, was a photo of a plane flying into the World Trade Center.
The headline: “World Trade Center Attacked.”
Enough said.
With the 20th anniversary of the terrorist attacks just days away, the Northwestern News is taking a look back at the events of Sept. 11, 2001 – and, more importantly, how our generation will remember them, in large part thanks to the news coverage from the time.
Newspapers across the country relentlessly covered the story, showing how the evil we saw that day would affect almost every American, including those of us here in the Heartland.
Local newspapers played a vital role in informing people about these attacks, just as they do today. Among them: The Alva Review-Courier and the Northwestern News.
The Review-Courier printed countless in-depth stories from the Associated Press, one of the nation’s premier news-gathering sources, about the scene in New York. But its stories showing how the attack reverberated in our part of America are among some of its most memorable.
LOCAL REPORTERS RESPOND
In a column in the Sept. 12 edition of the Newsgram, which is owned and operated by the Review-Courier, former publisher Lynn Martin captured the anger Americans felt after the attack.
“The shocking attack in New York, Washington and Pittsburgh will likely impact the nation as much as Pearl Harbor did 60 years ago,” he wrote. “If Pearl Harbor taught us a preparedness lesson, and September 11, 2001, taught us that our own airliners can be a devastating weapon, only the most evil imagination can predict what terror tactic will next be attempted.”
The front page of the Review-Courier on Sept. 13 carried three photos in chronological order showing the Twin Towers being hit by planes, along with a story about how Alva residents were in panic over rumors that gas prices would rise.
But not all coverage was doom-and-gloom.
“IF MY PEOPLE … WILL PRAY”
The most compelling front-page story told of how locals came together in prayer after the attack.
Former Review-Courier editor Helen Barrett related the situation at hand to the one Oklahomans had in 1995, when the Murrah bombing in Oklahoma City proved that evil could be found anywhere.
“Terrorism struck the heart of America’s military, government and financial world on the east coast,” Barrett wrote of the Sept. 11 attacks. “Hijacked airliners crashed into buildings collapsing the nation’s confidence with the crumbling walls of the World Trade Center.
“People died … people mourned … and again people prayed.
“At high noon, a few hundred people willingly gave up or delayed their lunch hours in response to a call to prayer by the Alva Ministerial Alliance.
“They prayed … for the children who would be left orphans by the deaths of their parents who worked in the buildings.
“They prayed … for the parents who lost children.
“They prayed … for forgiveness for the sins of the nation collectively.”
The headline of that story: “If My People … Will Pray.”
Enough said.
FINDING HOPE
The Northwestern News approached its coverage of the attacks much like the Review-Courier did. Campus reporters captured photos of groups of people praying and wrote their own accounts of how the attacks weighed on their hearts.
Local papers didn’t just write about the aftershocks of the attack. As community members and organizations banded together to provide relief to people in New York, the Review-Courier was there to tell of the good happening in the world.
The front page of the Sept. 14 edition showed that local gas stations were keeping their prices low.
As Barrett wrote, they “refused to give in to the pressure to raise prices despite huge lines of cars waiting to fill up.”
Barrett quoted Pam Lyon, owner of the Lite N-Nite convenience store, as having said: “’Why should we gain at America’s loss?’”
Meanwhile, reporter Yvonne Miller chronicled an effort by the Alva Fire Department to collect donations for widows and orphans.
“’They helped Oklahomans when we had our problems,’” Alva firefighter Fred Miller said in the story. “’Now we want to help them.’”
Local papers didn’t sensationalize the story of the 9/11 attacks. Instead, they mirrored the true, raw emotions of a nation in mourning.
A nation in grieving.
A nation that was torn.
And yet they still told the stories that gave us hope.
That gave us inspiration.
That helped people help others.
Local newspapers are the first draft of history. And the ones that serve Alva helped create an incredible draft.
They were just doing their jobs.
Enough said.