On Saturday, Nov 28, 2009 at 1:00 PM, I wrote to Tony DePalma in an e-mail with the subject line "9/11 New York Times Memorial" the following text:
Hello,
I read today that you were responsible for gathering much of the 9/11
victim memorial pictures. I am a history researcher (however recent the
history), looking for information through the reports of 9/11.
I was wondering if you would grant me an interview about your experience?
This e-mail is fine, but I am also willing to talk over Skype if you have a
chance. I saw your interview on the News Hour - it was cool.
Best,
Mr. ______
The flattery worked. A few days later, he responded with the following interesting tidbit:
Mr. _____,
Thank you for writing.
While I was involved in writing many of the 9/11 profiles, I had very
little to do with the photographs. You should also know that I left NYTimes
about a year ago, although I continue to contribute to the newspaper
occasionally.
If you still want to do an interview, let me know. I prefer e-mail.
Regards,
AR DePalma
Excitedly, I savored the e-mail, and after due consideration (and after Simon and I tried to track down some of the family members and failed), decided to make my position a little clearer and wrote back on the 6th of December:
Yes! E-mail is fine. Thank you for getting back to me and sorry for my delay. There are
holiday worries and then there was an enormous anti-globalization march in Rome today,
where I am staying.
I would love to know about your experience writing the 9/11 profiles. Also, even though
it was minimal, what was your small role exactly with the photographs? The reason I ask
is because of the e-mails contained in the metadata of the photographs which are used in
the memorials. I'm sure you know about those e-mails - which seem to be private exchanges
between the providers of the photos and the employees of New York Times - and I was
wondering if you remember how they might have come to be pasted into the metadata of the
photographs? And what might have been involved in the decision to leave that data within
the official news release versions of those photos seeing as they contain the phone
numbers and e-mails of family members?
Also, what can you say about your interaction with the family members? Were many of them
psychologically traumatized? Did they seem uncomfortable or wary of interacting with you?
What did you do to assure them that their information would be accurately represented?
Did the FBI interfere in any way?
I have been trying to contact family members, and they seem to be uncomfortable talking
to me about what they say was a tragic and traumatizing event in their lives. Sometimes
they even seem to know that I'd like to contact them and their phone numbers are inactive
or are picked up by answering machines. I would like your advice in reaching out to them.
Thanks for anything you can share about this.
Cordially,
_______
I never received a response.