The day after terrorist attacks stunned the United States, media critics and scholars largely praised the broadcast and print media outlets that presented the crisis to the nation Tuesday.
Arguably the largest domestic news story of the past quarter-century, film clips and sound bites of the flames and rubble in New York City and Washington, D.C., made their way up and down the television and radio dials, as outlets ranging from the big three networks to ESPN and MTV scrapped their regular programming in favor of constant crisis updates.
Newspapers also got into the act, putting special editions on newsstands, hours away from their normal press times. In Madison, The Capital Times, for example, experienced street sales of about 9,000 copies more than normal after it released its final edition bearing the headline 'Terrorists strike U.S.' to curious readers across Dane County shortly after noon, editor Dave Zweifel said.
Jill Geisler, head of the Leadership and Management Group for the Poynter Institute, a Florida-based media think tank, said she believes this commitment to providing minute-by-minute coverage deserves applause.
'To their credit, competitors put their stories ahead of all else,' said Geisler, who served as news director for WITI-TV in Milwaukee for 20 years.
Specifically, Geisler referred to different media corporations' willingness to share information and footage with one another.
'I think that in the past 24 hours, network and cable television proved their value,' she said.
David Shaw, a Pulitzer Prize-winning media critic for the Los Angeles Times, told The Daily Cardinal he was not only impressed by the sheer amount of coverage, but also by the nature in which media outlets handled the situation.
'For the most part, I don't think things were as sensational as they were in the past,' Shaw said.
Shaw drew comparisons between Tuesday's incident and the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, which he said prompted broadcasters to make hasty accusations.
Although the coverage was not perfect, such as when ABC, MSNBC and Fox News inaccurately reported that a car bomb had exploded outside the State Department, Shaw said he believes news outlets used better judgment as they reported on breaking news without making unwarranted speculations.
'Most of what I have seen has looked fairly responsible, quite frankly,' he said.
UW-Madison journalism and mass communications Professor James Baughman also said he noticed that early reports seemed to be conspicuously devoid of speculation.
This, he said, was likely the result of media outlets' experience with the Oklahoma City tragedy.
'I think they've been burned by that, and they were more careful this time,' Baughman said.
However, Shaw said he believes the strongest coverage came out of newspapers the next day. This coverage, he said, offered more details while remaining less sensational than many broadcast presentations.
Dramatic music and titles assigned to the story such as 'Day of Terror' on Fox and CBS's 'Attack on America' were cited by Geisler as examples of the more sensationalized aspects of some television coverage.
Baughman added that the talk-show format that dominated much of Tuesday and Wednesday's Fox News coverage was not in tune with the dramatic event that was unfolding.
'It's like the 'Rosie O'Donnell Show' or something,' he said.
In the wake of the attack's in-depth coverage, Geisler said she now wonders whether media consumers will expect more from television and other news, as they did in previous eras.
'I'm questioning about the possibility that this event will cause viewers to demand more from their local and network news,' she said.
