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regroup in the aftermath
Returning to offices and assessing the damage
By Jeff Bercovici
and Marty Beard
For the first time since Tuesday's attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, people in New York's media industry were at their jobs in large numbers yesterday.
But although media directors report that most of their employees were able to make it back to the office, they say the amount of real work that’s getting done is, in most cases, negligible.
By most estimates, business won't return to anything like its usual rhythm until late next week, with many employees taking time off from work Monday and Tuesday for the Jewish holiday Rosh Hashanah.
In the meantime, spotty phone service and jammed circuits, especially in lower Manhattan, are making communications difficult, and some internet and email servers still seem to be out.
Though the streets above Canal Street have by and large reopened, people traveling to offices in Manhattan are finding they may have to change trains three or four times.
As of yesterday, workers for whom getting to the office would have been difficult were being encouraged to take the day off or telecommute.
Moreover, a rash of bomb scares at media companies yesterday shattered the fragile sense of security that has developed since Tuesday morning and further disrupted schedules.
Buildings were evacuated after threats were phoned in to the midtown offices of CNN, Condé Nast and McGraw-Hill. Grand Central Station was also evacuated after a bomb scare. Airports were closed last night after eight men were detained, amid worries that they might be part of a second terrorist effort.
Amid all this, media directors say their top priority has been seeing to the emotional well-being of their staffers.
Though no media people are thought to be among the casualties, buyers and planners at virtually every agency lost friends and loved ones in the collapse of the World Trade Center's two towers.
"Everybody's very shaken and just trying to come to grips with life again step-by-step," says Ruby Gottlieb, senior vice president and director of planning and affiliated media services at Horizon Media, located on Third Avenue in midtown. "We're probably at 15 or 20 percent work efficiency."
With police officers manning checkpoints at entries into Manhattan, some buyers and planners from Brooklyn and New Jersey still have not been able to make it into the office, she says.
Those who make it in put down their work frequently to gather around the radio or television for news updates.
One thing Horizon executives have started doing is to look into the possibility of doing pro bono work to help victims of the attacks, says Gottlieb.
The agency is also providing counseling to traumatized workers.
"We're flexible," says Gottlieb. "We'll do whatever we can to make people's lives as comfortable as they can be."
Numerous other companies have echoed this desire to reach out to victims even as they console their own employees.
Paige Thompson, media director at DDB New York, says his agency is organizing a fund to help the families of firefighters and policemen killed in the rescue effort.
At Mediaplex, efforts are underway to collect spare computers to loan to the Red Cross, says vice president and director of media services Paul Benjou.
Meanwhile agencies in many other U.S. cities have been doing what they can to help out their colleagues in New York.
At GSD&M in Austin, Texas, employees organized a "buddy system" to help track down workers at the sister office in New York in the chaotic hours following the attacks, says head interactive producer David Evans.
Employees at Fallon McElligott's New York office, located two blocks away from World Trade Center Plaza, escaped the attacks unharmed, but the office was rendered inaccessible.
In response, Publicis New York is lending office space to the displaced workers, while employees at Fallon McElligott’s Minneapolis headquarters are helping out with client services and communications, says media director Lisa Seward.
"The reality is that it isn't difficult to make it," says Seward. "Just knowing they were safe put us well on the way to moving forward."
As the situation begins to normalize, however slowly, media departments are beginning to give thought to the most pressing business matters.
The complete pullback of advertisers from television during the coverage will necessitate a good deal of adjustment, notes Alan Jurmain, director of media services for Lowe Lintas & Partners, New York.
"We're taking care of scheduling and client wishes in terms of when they want to resume contact with the public," says Jurmain, who says the entire staff at Lowe Lintas congregated yesterday for a pizza lunch.
"We just want to identify what needs to happen instantly in light of the crisis. In all fairness, what needs to be done in our business isn't much in the scheme of things."
September 14, 2001
© 2001 Media Life
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