Blackout

Phillip Blanchard · **Posted:** Thu Aug 14, 2003 4:02 pm

After a half-hour, I haven't seen any baseless speculation that the blackout is a terrorist act. Let's get a move on!

Phillip Blanchard · **Posted:** Thu Aug 14, 2003 4:06 pm

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) Thursday said that a massive power outage that hit New York City and other East Coast cities was not caused by a terror attack.
REUTERS Reut16:55 08-14-03***Uh-oh.***

ADKbrown · **Posted:** Thu Aug 14, 2003 4:42 pm

*You must not read the NYT*: There was no immediate indication that the string of blackouts was linked to terrorism, but that possibility was not being discounted in Washington, where Tom Ridge, the Homeland Security Secretary, was meeting with his top advisers. . . .The Cable News Network quoted a federal emergency-management official as saying, ``We have no absolutely idea what this is.''

dasher · **Joined:** Tue Jan 14, 2003 1:01 am **Posts:** 26

Second graf of AP scene story ... â€˜â€˜It feels like Sept. 11 all over again,â€™â€™ said Leonardo, 26, of Staten Island. â€˜â€˜Itâ€™s that â€™Whatâ€™s going on?â€™ feeling.â€™â€™
Oh, please! Just cuz somebody says it, doesn't mean ya have to print it!

Phillip Blanchard · **Posted:** Thu Aug 14, 2003 8:04 pm

<blockquote>quote:<hr>Originally posted by dasher:
Second graf of AP scene story ... â€˜â€˜It feels like Sept. 11 all over again,â€™â€™ said Leonardo, 26, of Staten Island. â€˜â€˜Itâ€™s that â€™Whatâ€™s going on?â€™ feeling.â€™â€™
<hr></blockquote>Look around, Leonardo. See? No flaming skyscrapers. No ashes.

Bakelite · **Posted:** Thu Aug 14, 2003 9:20 pm

All I know is this: A lot of people I work with who barely got out alive two years ago were scared shitless.

Phillip Blanchard · **Posted:** Thu Aug 14, 2003 9:40 pm

<blockquote>quote:<hr>Originally posted by Dean Betz:
All I know is this: A lot of people I work with who barely got out alive two years ago were scared shitless.<hr></blockquote>Really. Of what?

Bakelite · **Posted:** Thu Aug 14, 2003 9:44 pm

<blockquote>quote:<hr>Originally posted by blanp:
Really. Of what?<hr></blockquote>The other shoe.

Phillip Blanchard · **Posted:** Thu Aug 14, 2003 10:03 pm

<blockquote>quote:<hr>Originally posted by Dean Betz:
The other shoe.<hr></blockquote>
From the context, though, I think Leonardo was just saying what he figured the reporter, who came out of nowhere to ask him how he felt, would want.

Bakelite · **Posted:** Fri Aug 15, 2003 12:16 am

<blockquote>quote:<hr>Originally posted by blanp:

From the context, though, I think Leonardo was just saying what he figured the reporter, who came out of nowhere to ask him how he felt, would want.<hr></blockquote>That's fine. I don't challenge the notion that we should apply critical thinking on whether to publish Leonardo's quote. That's what testy copy editors do. My point is that in the initial moments of the blackout, when we were still trying to sort out the scope of exactly what was happening, some people I work with were scared. A lot of people. Sensible people. Some of that fright had to do with their experiences of Sept. 11, 2001; I know that because that's what they told me.I detected some smartassed cynicism in the thread. Maybe that's what testy copy editors, do, too.

Phillip Blanchard · **Posted:** Fri Aug 15, 2003 3:05 am

I was making a editor's judgment of the usefulness of the quote. Giovanna Leonardo stood in an enormous line Thursday afternoon, waiting for the bus above a subway station where no trains were running.
"It feels like Sept. 11 all over again," said Leonardo, 26, of Staten Island. "It's that 'What's going on?' feeling."It might have made more sense if Leonardo had just walked through a subway tunnel or been freed from an elevator in which he was trapped. As it is, it seems like AP just went to the Quote-o-matÂ®. As far as people being afraid because of their memories of 9/11, I of course can't say. I read a thread of strained connections throughout the coverage. Since we are incapable of reporting on anything without drawing parallels with past events, I would go with 2003 vs. 1977, when New York was a much nastier place.

Phillip Blanchard · **Posted:** Fri Aug 15, 2003 6:59 am

Detroit Free Press editors and reporters dug candles out of desks, changed into jogging shorts and T-shirts, and crowded near windows for the last bits of light Thursday night as they worked to print a newspaper in a metropolitan area darkened by the nation's largest-ever power outage.
"We're putting out a paper like Ben Franklin," assistant city editor Kathleen O'Gorman said. (Detroit Free Press)***No, you're not.***

Phillip Blanchard · **Posted:** Fri Aug 15, 2003 7:02 am

"Al" of "Al's Morning Meeting" checks in with this helpful tip:Whatever you do in an outage:
Do not attempt to plug a generator into an electric socket in a wall.

Phillip Blanchard · **Posted:** Fri Aug 15, 2003 7:05 am

The story ideas are just gushing from "Al" this morning:Home Depot suggests a blackout survival kit for such emergencies. I wonder if anybody will go buy them today.

Phillip Blanchard · **Posted:** Fri Aug 15, 2003 7:14 am

From the Motor City to Manhattan, across two countries and a half-dozen states, tens of millions of people in the Northeast suddenly found themselves plunged into a power outage that brought daily life to a halt, yet most took it in stride. (Newsday)***They did, did they? Nice reporting on deadline.***

Phillip Blanchard · **Posted:** Fri Aug 15, 2003 7:30 am

There's an awful lot of "massive outages" out there.Careful editors know that those words almost always aren't what we want, but try explaining that to insistent superiors on deadline.Most stylebooks are silent on the subject. The New York Times stylebook, while almost comical in some parts (regulars here know I recommend a dramatic reading of the "dateline integrity" entry for comic relief), deals with "massive" and "outage" nicely. massive This overworked adjective is best reserved for references to physical bulk. A building or a mountain may be massive, but use a fresher description for a budget or a fire.WRONG: "A massive power failure struck the Northeast yesterday."
RIGHT:: "A massive lizard-like creature rampaged through Manhattan yesterday.") outage is jargon and a euphemism for failure, shutdown or cutoff (of electricity or water, for example). Use the simpler words. WRONG: "'We don't know what caused the outage,' said a spokesman for Niagara Mohawk."
RIGHT:"A spokesman for Niagara Mohawk said the utility doesn't know what caused the blackout."

jjmoney62 · **Posted:** Fri Aug 15, 2003 8:03 am

If only the story of the outage itself were as interesting as Phil's thread.Most people will take a three-day weekend. The power will be on soon. Ted Koppel's Viagra will wear off. A lot of people finally got a little exercise. ....

Phillip Blanchard · **Posted:** Fri Aug 15, 2003 3:27 pm

According to Richard A. Grasso, the Big Board's chairman, about 300 exchange staff and members stayed overnight, sleeping in the cafeteria and the board room. Mr. Gasso slept on his couch in his office, as did Mr. Britz and Catherine Kinney, co-president and chief operating officer of the exchange. (New York Times)***Too easy.***[ August 15, 2003: Message edited by: blanp ]

gullyj · **Posted:** Sat Aug 16, 2003 12:11 am

<blockquote>quote:<hr>Originally posted by jjmoney62:
Most people will take a three-day weekend. The power will be on soon. Ted Koppel's Viagra will wear off. A lot of people finally got a little exercise. ....<hr></blockquote>Glib is easy. Putting out a newspaper when neither the newsroom nor printing plant has electricity is much more difficult. Toronto Star had no home delivery Friday (neither did the Sun, National Post or Globe and Mail but all published) but managed to find a tiny web plant 120 kilometres away (in little Fort Erie across the border from Buffalo) that managed to pump out 150,000 full-colour copies (normal weekday circulation about 500,000 so, sadly, a lot missed out)of a single 16-page section.
We didn't have Viagra but as a former managing editor once said: "Hard news gives me a hard on."
Cheaper, too.

pzicari · **Posted:** Sun Aug 17, 2003 10:47 pm

The Plain Dealer, near the heart of the chain reaction, got out its paper in Akron, using Macs that editors hauled from Cleveland into the ad department at the Beacon Journal and copy delivered via e-mail. Some of the local copy was assembled by copy editors who became a temporary rewrite desk, taking calls, writing adds in longhand by the light of flashlights and handing them to an assistant managing editor who banged them out on a laptop and e-mailed them to the reporters who assembled them in a bureau that still had power.As night workers, we each had at least one flashlight...

Phillip Blanchard · **Posted:** Thu Aug 21, 2003 10:45 pm

<blockquote>quote:<hr>Originally posted by blanp:
The story ideas are just gushing from "Al" this morning:Home Depot suggests a blackout survival kit for such emergencies. I wonder if anybody will go buy them today.<hr></blockquote>I forgot to mention Al's especially helpful suggestion to "mark this date and check nine months later to see if the power outage results in a rising birthrate. That would be May 14."This old urban legend has been around at least since the Northeast blackout of 1965, as Snopes.com points out. Similar "rumors" involving Sept. 11, 2001, also have been shot down.Thanks, Al.[ August 21, 2003: Message edited by: blanp ]

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