The disappearance of Chandra Levy became a national topic of the news media in the summer of 2001, with 63% of Americans closely following the case. The media swamped Levy's parents from the moment they decided to go to Washington, D.C., in search of their daughter. According to Condit, about a hundred reporters were camped out in front of his apartment during the morning of September 11, 2001, but they all left after news spread about that day's terrorist attacks in New York and Washington. Media critics and cable news executives later cited the Levy case, as well as the concurrent sensationalist coverage of a string of shark attacks, as a reflection of the manner of news coverage in the United States before the September 11 attacks had taken priority.