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From theMarch
2002 issue of
World Press Review
(VOL. 49, No. 3)
Top 10 Stories of 2001
History
has recorded many turning points—events that on account
of their political or social magnitude have changed the world,
marking the end of one era and the beginning of another....But
very few times, perhaps never as on Sept. 11, 2001, have these
events occurred in a matter of seconds, in the time it took
a Boeing to slice through a steel and glass building and touch
off a conflagration capable of bringing down one of the greatest
structures ever erected by humans, while the whole planet looked
on live and direct in speechless horror. Only one thing was
certain: Something had changed forever....It is difficult to
remember the events that were news this year, because what happened
before Sept. 11 seems so far away in time.
—Javier Navia, La Nación, Buenos Aires, Dec.
30, 2001
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The
Associated Press
survey of U.S. editors
•
Sept. 11 attacks
• War on terrorism
• Anthrax bioterrorism
• Recession in the United States
• Bush inauguration
• Execution of Timothy McVeigh for bombing of federal
building in Oklahoma
• Israeli-Palestinian conflict
• U.S. Sen. Jim Jeffords of Vermont quits Republican
Party
and becomes an independent, tilting control of the Senate
to the Democrats
• Power crisis in California
• U.S. tax cut
The
Pew Research Center
U.S. news interest index
• Terrorism attack on the U.S. (10/17-21)
• Trade Center/Pentagon attacks (9/13-17)
• Identifying those who attacked the U.S. (10/1-3)
• High gasoline prices (May)
• Defending against future terrorism (10/1-3)
• Release of U.S. air crew from China (April)
• Building anti-terror coalition (10/1-3)
• Economic effects of terrorism (10/1-3)
• Possible U.S. military action (10/1-3)
• U.S. military effort in Afghanistan (10/15-17)
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The
Associated Press
survey of international editors
•
Sept. 11 terror attacks on the United States and the
ensuing war on terrorism
• The anthrax scare
• Renewed violence between Palestinians and Israelis
• George W. Bush takes office as U.S. president;
American politics
• Former Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milosevic arrested,
taken to The Hague
• World economy weakens
• Europe hit by mad cow and foot-and-mouth diseases
• Rising power of the European Union; introduction
of common currency
• China admitted to World Trade Organization
• (Statistical tie) Unrest at G-8 Summit and massacre
of Nepalese royal family
China
Daily, Beijing, China
editorial board
• Sept. 11 terror attacks on the United States
• Israeli-Palestinian conflict escalated
• World economic slowdown
• China enters into World Trade Organization
• The United States withdraws from the Anti-Ballistic
Missile Treaty
• Embryo cloning sparks heated debate
• Tension rises between India and Pakistan
• Royal massacre in Nepal
• Earthquake in India kills about 20,000 people
• Former Filipino and Indonesian presidents impeached
and Arroyo and Megawati, respectively, become new presidents
The
Japan Times, Tokyo, Japan
the editors
• War in Afghanistan
• Sept. 11
• U.S. recession
• Uncertainty in Indonesia
• Confusion in North-South Korea relations
• China: The World Trade Organization and 2008
Olympics
• India-Pakistan dispute
• United States withdraws from Anti-Ballistic Missile
Treaty
• Enron collapses
• Argentina defaults
Matichon
Daily, Bangkok, Thailand the editors
• Sept. 11 attack on the twin towers, New York
• The swift U.S retaliation attack on Afghanistan
• Fear of anthrax
• The world economic downturn
• New eruption of violence in the Palestinian-Israeli
conflict
• China’s entrance into the World Trade Organization
• The birth of Princess Aiko to Princess Masako
and Crown Prince Naruhito of Japan
• The impeachment of President Estrada in the Philippines
• Earthquake in the western Indian state of Gujarat
• The massacre of eight members of the Nepalese
royal family
Reporter,
Belgrade, Yugoslavia, Perica Vucinic, editor
• Sept. 11
• War against terrorism
• Closer relations between Russia and the United
States
• Extradition of Slobodan Milosevic to the Hague
Tribunal
• Social unrest in Argentina
• Protests against globalization
• Parliamentary elections in Kosovo
• War in (Former Yugoslav Republic of) Macedonia
• International success of Harry Potter books and
film
• Decision to give 2008 Olympic Games to Beijing
The
News, Lagos, Nigeria,
Babafemi Ojudu, managing editor
• Terrorist attack on the United States
• Tiv/Junkun crisis claims lives of 19 soldiers
• Dec. 23 assassination of Chief Bola Ige, Nigeria’s
attorney general and minister of justice
• Public hearings of the Human Rights Violation
Investigation Commission
• Religious riots in Jos between Christians and
Muslims
• War of the pastors and tension among Pentecostal
churches
• The controversial electoral bill
• Nigerian Agbani Darego wins Miss World competition
• Massacre of hundreds of people in robbers’
attack on Akwuzu
• Arrest, prosecution, and acquittal of a Lagos
socialite for child trafficking
La
Nación, San José, Costa Rica, Eduardo
Ulibarri, editor
• Terrorist attack on the United States
• Buildup of U.S.-led international anti-terrorist
coalition and collapse of Taliban regime after U.S.
and British military intervention
• Mapping of human genome and cloning of human
embryo
• World economic recession
• Meeting of the World Trade Organization in Doha,
admission of China and Taiwan, and launch of a new round
of trade-liberalization negotiations
• Election of Ariel Sharon as prime minister of
Israel and escalation of conflict between Israelis and
Palestinians
• Constitutional crisis in Argentina following
economic collapse of the country
• Escalation of tensions between India and Pakistan
• Major earthquake in El Salvador; 681 reported
dead
• Capture, extradition, and trial of Slobodan Milosevic
by the International Criminal Tribunal
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The Sept. 11 attacks
on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon and the ensuing war
on terrorism was the world’s leading news story in 2001.
Journalists and editors abroad—including 75 newspaper and
broadcast subscribers to the Associated Press surveyed by AP
in 24 countries, and editors of publications in Bangkok, Beijing,
Belgrade, Lagos, Manila, San José (Costa Rica), and Tokyo—agreed
with their American counterparts that Sept. 11 was a watershed
event with international repercussions.
“The greatest change produced by Sept. 11 was the unmistakable
sensation that things had changed,” wrote Daniel Samper
Pizano in El Tiempo of Bogotá, echoing the comments of
many journalists abroad in their reviews of the year. “The
sheer force of the strike...shattered the security and tranquility
of the United States; it shook the foundations of the economy;
it turned the international geopolitical map upside down; it
stirred up xenophobia and religious mistrust, and it showed
that the world was indeed round; in other words, what happens
at one point on the globe can affect a point clear on the other
side.”
Other major stories on international editors’ top-10 lists:
the slowdown in the world economy accelerated by the events
in September; fear of anthrax; renewed violence in the Middle
East; China’s admission to the World Trade Organization;
and the arrest of former Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milosevic
and his extradition to The Hague.
The inauguration of George W. Bush made headlines abroad, as
did the impeachment of the Philippine and Indonesian presidents;
the devastating earthquake in Gujarat, India, that killed 20,000
people; ethnic and religious violence in Nigeria; the mapping
of the human genome and the debate over embryo cloning; and
in Europe, the advent of the euro and the twin scourges of mad
cow and foot-and-mouth disease. Two year-end stories also were
cited by editors abroad: Argentina’s economic collapse
and the rising tension between Pakistan
and India.
The 354 news editors and broadcasters surveyed by AP in the
United States also selected the Sept. 11 attacks and the war
on terrorism as the year’s most important stories, followed
by anthrax bioterrorism, the recession, and the inauguration
of Bush. The only international story on the top-10 list, aside
from the war in Afghanistan, was the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The biggest story of the summer, the media-driven obsession
with the scandal involving California’s Congressman Gary
Condit and the disappearance of Washington, D.C., intern Chandra
Levy, had faded from memory. It seemed to belong to another
time, the pre-Sept. 11 era—“an extension of the ’90s,”
as Doug Ward wrote in The Vancouver Sun, “a bland, happy
era when sexual indiscretion in the Oval Office was what passed
for
historical drama.”
According to the Washington, D.C.-based Pew Research Center
for the People and the Press, which conducts monthly surveys
of interest by Americans in major news stories, public interest
in the news “was modest at best” during the first
eight months of 2001. The rising price of gas and China’s
release of a detained American air crew in April were the only
stories followed closely by the majority of Americans. But in
mid-September, 96 percent of those surveyed by Pew said they
were following news about the Sept. 11 attacks “very closely”
or “fairly closely.”
“The change in news interest in the post-Sept. 11 period
was striking,” the Pew Center said. “On average, just
23 percent of the public paid very close attention to the typical
news story before the attacks, which is comparable to yearly
averages since 1990, but after the attacks that number more
than doubled, to 48 percent.”
In a Pew survey in December, two-thirds of respondents agreed
that they were now more generally interested in the news, with
53 percent tuning into cable television as their first choice
for coverage of the war on terrorism.
Eight of the top 10 stories on Pew’s
U.S. news interest index for 2001 related to the terrorist
attacks and the U.S. military response. The year’s top
foreign story, aside from the war against terrorism and the
release of the U.S. crew in China, was violence in the Middle
East, watched closely in December by 31 percent of Americans.
“The terrorist attacks and the war in Afghanistan have
created a new internationalist sentiment among the public,”
the Pew Center reported on Oct. 24. “There is much more
support for a multilateral foreign policy than before Sept.
11, with roughly 59 percent [of respondents] now saying that
the interests of allies should be taken into account by U.S.
policymakers” and 61 percent agreeing that taking an active
role in the world will become a more effective way of avoiding
problems like terrorism in the future.
Indeed, as Tokyo’s The Japan Times wrote in its
year-end wrap-up, about Sept. 11, “the world became infinitely
smaller for Americans.”
—Margaret Bald 
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