For his graceful work under pressure, Gellman won the Jesse Laventhol Award for deadline reporting. And that's what he did. Straightforward, chronological, get it done. For their gripping deadline account of the hostage-taking of a school bus filled with disabled children, Merzer, Gail Epstein, Frances Robles, and more than a dozen of their Herald colleagues won the Jesse Laventhol Award for team deadline reporting. Merzer, who wrote the story, credited the reporters, columnists, interns, and others who hit the streets the morning of the hijacking with feeding him the details that enabled the Herald to compete the next day with a story given saturation broadcast coverage.
Details are paramount.
But it's a signal that we do. Follow my orders, he says, or I will kill the kids. But please, don't hurt the children. The saga of Dade County school bus number CX-17, bound for Blue Lakes Elementary, begins. To give the images and the details and to care about 'em one way or the other.