Journos’ “I” notebook

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When SunStar Cebu’s Page 1 landed in an international book on 9/11

‘…News remains the oxygen of our liberty.’

Max Frankel, former executive editor of The New York Times, in his introduction to the book, says it is a “souvenir of horror, a blazing obituary of American innocence. He tells the reader, “You are also holding a testament to news, tangible evidence that urgent and reliable news is no more obsolete than hate and heroism, fear and favor. Here atop the rubble lies a reminder that news remains the oxygen of our liberty.”

Poynter Institute was able to release the book before the year 2001 ended, or less than four months after the tragedy.

FIRST the book, titled “September 11, 2001: A collection of newspaper front pages selected by the Poynter Institute.” When the United States was attacked by terrorists, the news spread all over the world at once, with billions of people waking up on September 12 “to find that the front page of their local newspaper was devoted to the tragedy of the World Trade Center of the Pentagon.” Amazon Book Club, describing the book, said it is “a collection of 150 front pages of major newspapers throughout the world.” In a day — Andrew E. Barnes, chairman of The Poynter Institute and chairman and CEO of St. Petersburg Times in the preface says — “hundreds of front pages were recorded on our website” and 150 were picked for the “permanent record and memorial to the dead, the bereaved, the heroic.” Barnes, who calls the tragedy “moments frozen in time,’ says Poynter published the book — within the same year, 2001. or less than four months from the event — “to remind Americans, especially media corporations, of the purpose of a free press…”

Then the range of choice. Among the 150 selected front pages was the Sept. 12, 2001 front page of a newspaper in Cebu, SunStar (then written as Sun.Star, with a dot between two words). Producing the cover page was memorable enough; its inclusion in the U.S. published book made it a happy event for the local newspaper and Cebu journalism.

SunStar was one of only 16 papers under the category of “International Newspapers”; the only one from the Philippines; and one of only two from Asia (the other is The Hindu, from India). Three papers were selected under “National Newspapers” (Christian Science Monitor, U.S.A. Today and Wall Street Journal) and the rest were from 35 American states under “U.S. Newspapers” (including New York Times, The Washington Post and The Boston Globe).

SunStar’s front page in the Poynter book is the only one from the Philippines, one of two from Asia, and one among 16 listed under “International Newspapers” category.

SunStar’s is on Page 138. An eight-page extra or “special edition,” the front page carried only two stories: the main story leading off with the casualties and the second story about Japan’s statement about the impact on the economy. A sky teaser says PAL cancelled flights to the U.S. All the elements were about the tragedy.

Max T. Limpag recalls the night when the story broke, the horror he shared with Noel Villaflor and other copy editors. It was, he says, before the time that “newsrooms were required to provide minute-by-minute breaking news on social media… Facebook would be founded three years later.” Remembrance of Chinese food (“pansit canton”) also came with memory’s flow.

As editor-in-chief on duty then, I have things to remember too on the night the story broke, topped by this: The editor who decides what text and photos will go to Page 1 and how it will look isn’t fazed by the hugeness of the breaking story. He or she is excited, yes, but manages not to show it. Year-after features in SunStar included the roles we played in producing the front page and getting it into an international book. — Pachico A. Seares

1. Editors handling the big news often don’t show they’re excited

PACHICO A. SEARES
Adapted Sept. 9, 2023
[First published in SunStar, Sept. 11, 2002]

A virtue, or curse, an editor learns from his job is not showing excitement over incidents that shake up or shatter most other people.

Typical of that passivity came up on the day the big, big news broke, when in New York the twin towers, symbols of American affluence and power, fell.

A few minutes before 11 p.m. (daytime in New York, nighttime in Cebu). Editors at Sun.Star Cebu had already met and budgeted space, only one reporter was left in an almost empty newsroom, three editors were working on the last stories or checking formatted pages. A half hour more and the newsroom would be deserted.

Someone half-opened the editor-in-chief’s door and without getting in told me: “BBC or CNN.”

Through the glass from where I sat, I immediately glanced up at images on the 28-inch tv set perched close to the newsroom ceilling. CNN was on. Editors were not at their desks but standing, drawn to the tv.

Which only meant BIG NEWS BREAKING.

I switched on the set in my room and there came on what would be a repetitive replay of video shots on the crash of the plane on the New York buildings and the anchor person’s voice, low but still reeking with crisis.

As the facts poured in and it became certain the crash was no accident but a terrorist attack on the U.S. homeland, I knew we had to do a lot of changes on the edition were were working on. So did everyone else in Sun.Star’s newsroom at the time.

Mentally, I began plotting what stories would be moved out of Page 1, which stories devalued or dumped, and where to scrounge for space for the new material.

In and outside the SunStar newsroom: Isolde Amante, top and lower left, and Max Limpag. A different kind of excitement surged when the 9/11 story was breaking. IDA was news editor and Max handled online news. The run was a Press Freedom Week activity.

Outside, without being cued, IDA (news ed Isolde D. Amante) was already conferring with Max (web site editor Max T. Limpag).

I went out and talked about the changes with the editors. Quietly, no raised voices, not even the usual ribbing. Then all went back to their desks to begin the make-over even as everyone had his ears, if not eyes, on the tv set.

The trick is to be apprised of what is developing to be guided on what one is working. Plans change along the way, dictated by the turn or twist of the story. The alert sub-editor anticipates decisions of the editor on duty from the way the story develops.

In a few minutes, the other pages would be changed and what would be left were just Page 1 and the “jump” page.

If an outsider were watching us, he would be struck by the lack of evidence of excitement. Sobrang cool.

More than the usual routine but still routine. Of course, we were excited over the year’s biggest international story that would touch most other countries and nations and shape most other stories to come.

Adrenalin flowed, hearts beat faster but staying clear-headed while beating the clock is the game.

Experience brings what they call the exterior calm. So does the knowledge that technology is on our side.

The technology that enables us to watch and hear reports of an event thousands of miles away, seeing its horror and tragedy in full color, even was it is still unfolding, and for us to report it as well to our own audience, with as much clarity and vividness as the newspapers in the U.S. would the following day.

The American book on “September 11” later included this paper’s extra edition, putting its banner page along with the front pages of the world’s great newspapers.

How did Sun.Star do it? That’s the main story in today’s anniversary feature.

2. Breaking story, ‘pansit,’ Poynter’s call for Page 1 images

MAX T. LIMPAG
Adapted September 2023
[First published in SunStar, Sept. 11, 2002]

When the planes hit the World Trade Center 20 years ago, I was at work editing stories and laying out pages at the Sun.Star Cebu Central Newsroom.

Looking back through my newsroom years, I realize that it was where I was in many historical events: the announcement that Pope John Paul II was dying, the election of Pope Benedict XVI, among other key events.

Noel Villaflor was one of the copy editors still in the newsroom when the 9/11 bulletin reached SunStar.

We were glued to the newsroom TV set, watching mostly CNN. Fellow copy editor Noel Villaflor recalled that we immediately discussed conspiracy theories on the attack that was happening. All I could remember through the decades, however, was the utter horror I felt seeing the attack unfold in real time.

I also remember the pansit. Whenever there was a breaking story and we needed to work late, our editor Atty. Pachico Seares would ask newsroom assistant Titing Bontilao to buy pansit and a loaf of bread from State Fair, a popular restaurant in downtown Cebu City. It was such a regular occurrence that pansit wrapped in banana leaves and breaking news are inexorably linked in my mind. When news breaks, I have a Pavlovian urge to eat pansit.

We were able to focus on the event that was unfolding because this was before the time that newsrooms were required to provide minute-by-minute breaking news coverage on social media. Facebook would be founded three years later.

All our efforts that night were focused on publishing the next day’s issue and a special edition, an Extra, soon after.

Being a journalism news junkie, I read a call by Poynter some days later asking for newsrooms to send their front pages as a way to show how newspapers from all over the world covered the attack. I sent a copy of Sun.Star Cebu’s page one and in November 2001, Sun.Star Cebu’s front page was included in the historic book September 11, 2001, “a collection of 150 front pages of major newspapers throughout the world.”

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