Twenty-five years ago, I worked for U.S. News & World Report in Washington, D.C.
I was part of the “new media” team and co-reported to the editor of new media and the magazine’s design director. I was responsible for the user experience and design of what we still called “new media”—the magazine’s website and the emerging digital experiences around it.
That phrase feels dated now. At the time, it described work that was rapidly changing the relationship between a publication and its readers.
On September 11, 2001, that relationship—and the responsibility that came with it—became very real.
Watching from an airport terminal
When the first plane struck the World Trade Center, I was at the airport in Jackson, Mississippi.
I had been visiting family over the Labor Day holiday and was on my way back to Washington—back home and back to work.
I watched the attack unfold live on a television in the terminal. Everyone around me stood in shock and horror. Then we watched the second plane hit.
In that moment, the uncertainty disappeared. This was not an accident. Something unimaginable was happening.
Shortly afterward, airport officials told us the airport was shutting down because the nation’s airspace was being closed.
I called the office to see what options I had for getting back. I considered renting a car. I looked into taking a train. I tried to find any workable route to Washington.
Nothing worked.
Commercial civilian flights did not begin to resume until the morning of September 14. I remained in Jackson, knowing my colleagues in Washington were already responding to the largest story of our lives.
Three days to produce an edition
While I was trying to get back, the assignment facing the magazine was enormous.
In less than three days, the U.S. News team had to report, write, edit, design, produce, and develop an entire special print edition and its online counterpart.
The normal distance between print and digital disappeared. Reporting, editorial decisions, design, production, and development all had to move at once.
I had my work laptop with me, which meant I could remain part of the new media team from my parents’ house. Remote work in 2001 was nothing like it is today. There were no cloud workspaces, Slack, Zoom, or always-on broadband. I connected through my parents’ slow home internet, relying on email, phone calls, and transferring the files the connection could handle.
Pages and files that move almost instantly today took time. The connection could be unreliable, and every exchange required patience. Even so, I contributed to the website work, stayed in close contact with my colleagues, and helped keep the digital coverage moving while they managed the intense production effort in Washington. I was physically in Mississippi, but I was still part of the team.
By September 14, the special report was on newsstands and online.
What the team accomplished was a tremendous feat of journalism and collaboration. But under the circumstances, it did not feel like an ordinary professional achievement. We had done the work the moment required. The reason we had to do it was horrific.
Returning to a changed Washington
Once flights resumed, I finally made my way back to Washington.
On the flight home, I remember looking down and seeing the Pentagon still smoldering, with a huge gash in the building. It is an image I have never forgotten.
The next day, I made my way to our office in Georgetown. Washington felt transformed. Tanks and soldiers carrying machine guns seemed to be everywhere.
The city was familiar, but it no longer felt like the same place I had left.
My colleagues had already completed the first special report. The work, however, was far from over. I joined an effort already in motion: covering an unfolding national tragedy while living inside its aftermath.
From breaking news to remembrance
Ten days after the first special report, we published another special edition. Its cover read “Under Siege.”
Inside, the story had expanded beyond the immediate attack to include the people affected, the response underway, and a country trying to understand what had happened.
I joined my colleagues in producing that second edition and expanding our digital coverage. We also created a memorial microsite dedicated to those who had lost their lives.
Today, publishing a new page or updating a website can feel nearly instantaneous. In 2001, online news was still establishing its role alongside print publications. We were learning in real time what it meant to serve an audience that expected information to change as events developed.
That ability brought a different kind of responsibility.
The number on the screen
One of the saddest things I had to do was update the death toll as new information came in.
From a production standpoint, it was a website change: receive the latest confirmed information, update the number, and publish it.
It never felt like data.
Every increase represented another person whose death had been confirmed. Behind that person was a family, a group of friends, colleagues, and an entire life suddenly reduced to part of a count.
I remember the tension of needing the website to be accurate and current while wishing there were no new number to enter.
Of all the work involved in those weeks, that responsibility remains one of the things I remember most clearly.
The tools changed. The responsibility did not.
Digital publishing has changed almost beyond recognition since 2001.
News now moves continuously across websites, social platforms, mobile alerts, live video, and countless other channels. Publishing systems can distribute information around the world in seconds. Automation and AI can make that process faster still.
But speed does not remove human responsibility.
It increases it.
The faster information moves, the more important it becomes to remember what that information represents. A number may be a field in a publishing system, a value in a database, or a line of text on a page. It can also represent a human life.
That lesson has stayed with me throughout my career in digital experience, product, technology, and leadership.
Every interface reaches someone. Every system reflects a set of decisions. Every update has a consequence beyond the screen.
The work may be digital, but its meaning is always human.
What stays with me
It was an extraordinary time to work for the nation’s third-largest news magazine.
It was also a horrific moment in our history—one I will never forget.
Twenty-five years later, I still remember the airport terminal falling silent. I remember watching the second plane hit. I remember the frustration of being unable to get back to Washington, working from my parents’ house over a slow connection and wishing I could do more. I remember seeing the damaged Pentagon from the air and returning to a city that felt changed.
I remember the two covers. And I remember the number on the screen that none of us wanted to see increase.
Today, I remember those we lost, the families who carried that loss forward, and the colleagues whose work began before I could return and continued after I joined them.
Some assignments end when the edition ships.
Others stay with you forever.
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