Remembering 'another day of infamy,' 25 years later

Sarah Leach, a 2002 graduate and former Central Michigan Life editor-in-chief remembers the day as the moment she truly became a journalist. 

CM Life spoke with Leach about her experience leading the newsroom during 9/11, how the tragedy affected her as a journalist and what she remembers most from the days and months that followed. Answers have been edited for length and clarity. 

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CM Life: Do you remember the exact moment when you first learned that a plane had hit the Twin Towers? Can you walk me through where you were and what you were doing? 

Leach: I was driving to campus because I had a 9 a.m. class that day. It was a Tuesday, and I was listening to Michigan Public Radio, and I heard the news broadcast come in and say that a plane had hit one of the towers. 

Because they weren't very specific or detailed in that report at the time, I was picturing a small Cessna, like a two-seater plane ... I thought, “Oh, that's a bummer,” and I just kept driving. 

When I got to class, I think we were only in class for about 15 minutes. I noticed that a bunch of students that were in the class were acting what I thought was strange. ... There were a lot of whispers and murmurs — “Did you hear about this?” I started to get kind of annoyed because I thought, “What's the big deal? This kind of stuff is unfortunate. It happens.” 

Then I went to the basement of Anspach Hall, where the CM Life offices used to be at that time. The professors in the journalism department had wheeled in a giant television, and they were broadcasting the live coverage. 

By then, the second plane had hit. We were watching in real time as people were literally leaping to their deaths. I immediately felt terrible because I had been so dismissive of it for the previous hour. I realized the gravity of the moment. 

CM Life: At what point did you realize the severity of what was happening and that it wasn't simply normal breaking news? 

Leach: I think we were all just in a state of shock. There were a couple of students in the office with me and some professors, and we were all watching the television and processing what we were seeing. 

Maybe about 10 minutes later, Neil Hopp, who was the adviser at the time, went into his office, got a dry erase marker, went over to the whiteboard and wrote in big black letters “Another day of infamy.” 

He said, “That's your headline. You need to get a plan together and you need to start working.” 

Something in my brain clicked in that moment. I thought, “Oh my gosh, we have to put out a paper today, and we need to scrap everything that was planned. We need to pivot.” 

We had about four or five staff meetings. I was really clear with the students because everyone was upset. If you walked around campus, people were crying in the streets. Planes were grounded, cell phone technology wasn't nearly what it is today and there was no social media. 

People were trying to get in contact with their parents and loved ones. They didn't know if people were traveling or if they were safe. It felt like everyone thought this was our Pearl Harbor. Everyone thought the world was ending. We were all a bunch of scared kids. 

I knew I couldn't help that, but what I could do was focus on getting people as much information as possible. We did have a website at the time, and I was very clear with the student staff . I said that if they weren't able to handle it and needed to go back to their dorm rooms or find their loved ones, I completely understood. 

But anyone who was able to help us get information out, meet me in the conference room. We had four or five meetings throughout the day. In real time, two additional planes had crashed. One into the Pentagon and one in Pennsylvania, we kept trying to focus on what we could do to help people have information, so they knew what to do with it. 

CM Life: What was the atmosphere like in the CM Life newsroom for the people who stayed and worked on putting out the paper? 

Leach: I don't think I have ever seen as intense of a newsroom feeling. I've been in a lot of newsrooms, and I've watched live broadcasts of the shuttle explosions and several other tragedies over the past 20 years, but I think this one was so much more intense. Maybe it was because I was young, or because we were all young. 

We were trying to figure out what we could do as student journalists who were nowhere near where any of this was happening get any information could be relevant to our readership? 

The one story that I am immensely proud of is that we actually found somebody who was connected to the Pentagon. We were able to interview him through a series of connections that we had with the student staff. It was, “My cousin knows a person who knows somebody who did this,” and we were trying to track down those leads. 

It gave people something to focus on so they weren't anxious about what was going on in the world. We had the television going throughout the day. Eventually, we turned off the sound. Thankfully, the news broadcaster stopped repeating the footage of people jumping from the towers because that was on for hours, and it was really traumatic to watch. 

The vibe in the newsroom was, “We need to feel like we have purpose in order to make this make sense for us in the moment.” It helped us cope with this national tragedy as it was unfolding. 

CM Life: How did 9/11 affect the way you thought about yourself as a journalist? 

Leach: I think that was the moment that I actually became a journalist. 

I was in my fifth year because it took me five years to get through school, and I was set to graduate that spring. I already had a couple of internships, so I was committed to this career. 

But I think that was the moment, as tragic and awful as it was, that it clicked inside of me. I thought, “I'm really going into a course of work that I know is right for me. I'm deeply passionate about it.” 

I've never once lost that passion despite all of the industry ups and downs and personal career highs and lows. 

I always think back on that experience in a bittersweet way because it wasn't fun, and I would never want to experience it again. But having been through it, there are silver-lining lessons to look back on and say, “That was the moment where I knew I was going into the right career path.” 

I knew I was going to be able to help other people in future situations like this, and that was very fulfilling. 

CM Life: What was it like covering the aftermath in the days and weeks that followed? 

Leach: We struggled with how to do follow-up coverage because once the immediate crisis is over, what happens next? 

It was a very depressing couple of weeks as the death toll increased. They had to clear the scene, which took a really long time. People were reported missing, and it took years to try to identify remains. 

There was a follow-up edition that we did in Life where there was a big spread with the names of the people who were in the towers. I think we did the first responders who died in the tower collapses, too. 

We were trying to do anything we could to honor what happened and keep it front and center because it was all that anyone talked about for months, but we also wanted to do it in a respectful way and not be predatory about it because sometimes the media can be that way. 

That's a really difficult line for student journalists to walk because they haven't been through anything like this before. We really leaned on the professors and the adviser, with lots of late-night conversations about what was appropriate, what was too much, whether something was going too far and when the readership was exhausted on a certain topic. 

CM Life: What are some of your biggest takeaways from the experience? 

Leach: I was really surprised by the level of unity that I saw in the country. 

For context, the nation was in a very precarious situation because we had just had the 2000 election, where we had the hanging chads and weren't sure who was president. That was a really divisive thing that happened, only for this to happen very soon afterward. 

I was struck by how we are capable of coming together as a country, rallying around things and putting away petty stuff when it matters most. 

I think that's one of the things that really struck me and also makes me sad about the way things are right now. I really wish we could find that again.