The Sports Section With Swagger

"In The Washington Post 's newsroom, an aghast 24-year-old college-basketball reporter named Michael Wilbon watched live reports of the disaster on the mounted TV banks, heard the urgency among those around him, grabbed a notebook and his jacket, and ran toward the riverbank to report on the rescue efforts, because that was what he'd been schooled to do. He never got a byline-his name never appeared on the story."

"Reminiscing in a phone call with me last night, Wilbon recalled that the old offices of the Post's editors, at the newspaper's former building on 15th Street, had glass walls inside-so on the night of the crash, he could see Ben Bradlee, the executive editor, and his deputies huddling. "They were meeting," Wilbon remembered. "They kept meeting. So finally, I said, Well, let's just fucking go.""

"Trailing Wilbon was another 20-something college-sports reporter named John Feinstein. They interviewed witnesses and rescuers, then hustled over to an old Marriott hotel at the Arlington mouth of the bridge, where they huddled by a phone reading their notes to someone in the office taking dictation. Feinstein, who died last year, didn't get a byline either; cub reporters often didn't. It was just what he'd been schooled to do. (He did become a best-selling author, though. Wilbon later got famous co-anchoring ESPN's Pardon the Interruption.)"

On a frigid January night in 1982 an airplane stalled after takeoff from Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport and collided with the 14th Street Bridge, plunging into the Potomac. A 24-year-old college-basketball reporter, Michael Wilbon, watched live reports, grabbed a notebook and jacket, and ran to the riverbank to cover rescues. He and fellow reporter John Feinstein interviewed witnesses, took dictation at a hotel, and did not receive bylines, reflecting standard practice for cub reporters. Editors, including Ben Bradlee, met behind glass offices as reporters pressed into action. That ethos of immediate, hands-on reporting has long driven the newsroom's momentum.

Read at The Atlantic