[September 12, 2011] Winston-Salem Journal, N.C., Scott Sexton column Tweet Sep 11, 2011 (Winston-Salem Journal - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- Ten years ago, televisions were like magnets. Wherever you were, whatever you were doing, they pulled you in. The pictures from New York and the Washington area -- horrific and unfathomable as they were -- were even more gripping and compelling. No matter what, you watched. We all did. It was the same way for us. We drifted in, one by one, to the Winston-Salem Journal newsroom. Reporters, editors, photographers. We watched, mouths agape, trying to make sense of what we were witnessing. Planes flying into the World Trade Center? How? Why? There was work to do. On the ground In September 2001, the Journal was a much different place than it is today. The harsh new world of economic upheaval was years away. We had reporters in a half-dozen bureau offices then, including one in Washington. Reporter Kevin Begos shared office space there with other journalists from Media General, our parent company. Begos was an experienced, savvy reporter. The week before 9/11, a series ran that he had reported from Sudan focusing on the civil war and humanitarian efforts by Samaritan's Purse, a nonprofit charitable organization working out of Boone. He knew what he was doing and how to report things in the midst of chaos. "I remember writing that and wondering whether I should include a reference that said (Osama) bin Laden had been expelled from Sudan in'93," Begos said. "I decided against it. It was ancient history. And who even knew who bin Laden was?" It wouldn't be long before we all knew. Here in Winston-Salem, a decision had been made to put out an old-school "extra" edition, a small, midday publication -- something that the Internet and a 24/7 news cycle have probably made obsolete. Word spread that other planes had been hijacked, that Washington might be under attack, that fighters had been scrambled. All the information we could lay hands on -- wire-service reports, photos and first-person accounts from our bureaus -- was going into it. One problem, though. It was pushing 10, 10:30 a.m. and we had maybe 90 minutes to get it done. Where's Begos? Anybody talked to him? What's going on in Washington? Natural questions. I was his editor. And I hadn't been able to find him. Knew what to do Hard to believe, but in 2001 cellphones were not as ubiquitous as they are today. People actually made telephone calls. No texting, no IMs. With the chaos of the day, cellular service was spotty at best. No answer on the landline in Begos' place; same for his office phone. The Pentagon had been hit. Suddenly we were looking for more than just a quickie newspaper story for an extra edition. We were looking for a colleague and a friend. Turns out that Begos was on the way to an office in the National Press Center. Without being asked, he knew what had to be done. He phoned in, then hit the bricks, walking through Washington. Surging, nervous crowds gathered in the usual tourist spots midmorning. Several blocks around the White House, Begos reported, were cordoned off by yellow tape. Police officers armed themselves with riot shotguns. "I heard a loud bang, and I thought, 'Gee, that's odd,'" said Davis Arribas, a paratrooper in World War II whom Begos interviewed outside the White House a little while after a plane slammed into the Pentagon just across the Potomac River. "And we came outside on the sidewalk, and everybody was running. 'Don't sit there, come with us, hurry, get out of here!'" people told him. As the hours passed, Washington slowly emptied. "At times, not a single car could be seen on Pennsylvania Avenue near the Capitol, and police cars blocked Constitution and Independence avenues," Begos wrote. "The empty streets were shocking for a beautiful afternoon, as was the roar of F-16 jets on patrol above the city." The new normal Slowly, normalcy -- or the closest thing to it -- was restored. Reporting on the after-effects of 9/11, the changes in our lives and the changes in our world outlook took over. As they always seem to, other, lesser matters eventually started to grab our attention. Sen. Jesse Helms wouldn't be running again. U.S. Rep. Richard Burr, a Winston-Salem Republican, would emerge to beat Democrat Erskine Bowles. At the paper, Begos' attention would turn to something he had learned about from a footnote at a conference on science reporting: eugenic sterilization. He would also eventually travel to Afghanistan to report on the works of Samaritan's Purse there after U.S. forces invaded in the hunt for bin Laden. New day, new issue, new projects. Begos is now with The Associated Press. I'm no longer an editor, no longer responsible for others' work. This job, the only one I ever wanted, is better. It was impossible to imagine as we watched the towers come falling down, but life -- and work -- eventually moved on. ___ (c)2011 Winston-Salem Journal (Winston Salem, N.C.) Visit Winston-Salem Journal (Winston Salem, N.C.) at www2.journalnow.com Distributed by MCT Information Services [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]