Everyone at UNC had already seen 100 times over the images of planes plowing into skyscrapers and the mounds of rubble that it soon turned into. So instead, the DTH went with a decidedly understated front page: a headline of "September 11, 2001" and an emotional photo of New Yorkers embracing and cringing as they watched the World Trade Center towers collapse. (At the bottom of the page, a smaller "destruction photo" did run.)
The dominant photo was not only a welcome change from the death and destruction of other media outlets, it was also fitting for a campus experiencing the same emotions of shock, fear and togetherness brought to life in the photo.
Sept. 11 was a difficult day for everyone, but the DTH made it that much more digestible.
Another Impression
A DTH issue that came out a week and a half later, however, left another impression.
President Bush had just addressed "a united Congress and worried nation" and vowed to "avenge terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, D.C.," according to an Associated Press story the DTH put on its front page.
The story itself was simply plucked from the news wire: no editing necessary. But the writing of a headline -- as with all wire stories -- was up to the DTH.
"Bush: War Against Terror Eminent," was the dominant headline of Sept. 21, just under the DTH banner. Granted, one could argue, a war against terror might well be "eminent." Eminent, after all, means prominent, towering above others, or noteworthy.
Nonetheless, eminent is not what the DTH meant. What it meant was "imminent," defined as impending or about to occur. (Incidentally, Bush didn't exactly say that war was imminent. He merely vowed to avenge the attacks, which doesn't necessarily translate to a vow of war.)
In terms of journalistic gaffs, the DTH certainly picked a popular one. The book "Working with Words: A handbook for media writers and editors," in its section on confused words, lists not two, but four such words that are easily mixed up -- emanate, eminent, immanent and imminent. No wonder it's hard to keep them straight.
But while it's true that mistakes are made, it's also true that in the newspaper business, mistakes are caught -- and corrected before going to press. It's one advantage of not being a live medium.
At least four pairs of eyes saw the faulty headline that night, including those of a copy editor whose job it was to catch such errors. None of them could have been 100-percent sure that "eminent" was used correctly, but none of them looked it up.
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All of them should have had a copy of "Working with Words" or some such media handbook by their sides.
Fortunately, the DTH will not live down their blunder for a long time to come. By the morning of Friday, Sept. 21, astute readers started e-mailing, dropping by and calling the DTH office to gently direct their attention to the error. After the first call, the reaction in the newsroom was probably something like "we know, we know, we know." But the e-mails kept coming my way through the weekend. Some were not so gentle.
But as a professor of mine pointed out, such gaffs have happened before, and they will surely happen again.
He showed me a copy of the Duluth News Tribune from May 30, 2001. "McVeigh might persue stay of execution" read the giant bold letters sprawling across the front page. The word pursue was misspelled.
51,000 people saw the Duluth paper that day. That's 51,000 people who rely on their local paper for accurate and in-depth information about their communities and their world. And they didn't even have to look past the lead headline to find a reason not to trust it.
One can only hope that most readers do notice such lapses. Otherwise, there could be quite a depressing scenario. Imagine, 50,000 people thinking America is going to "persue" bin Laden and another 20,000 thinking war is "eminent."
Josh Myerov is a second year master's student. He can reached at jmyerov@email.unc.edu or 918-1311.
