By now, it’s no secret what September 11, 2001 will be in both our minds and our history books – a day that will live in infamy. But besides the obvious reasons as to why September 11, 2001 will be remembered in history – I think that day was also a wake up call for the media.

Before the events of September 11th, newspapers’ front-page stories focused on Gary Condit and his extra-marital affair, the “Rudy and Judi” saga – and Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman’s breakup. All stories that in my opinion – did not belong on the front page of a newspaper. And before those stories were “front page news” according to the tabloids that we are all forced to call newspapers – there were other front-page stories that were equally as “important”. There were the stories about Rudy’s divorce, the daily trials and tribulations of Monica Lewinsky – and my personal favorite – Puff Daddy changing his name to P.Diddy.

It’s clearly obvious that the attack perpetrated on September 11th has changed our world as we know it – and I think that this event showed – among everything else – that newspapers really need to start taking real news seriously again. So many times before the 11th did I see real, noteworthy news shoved to the back of the newspapers and nestled between ads and other stories to make way for stories that belong on Access Hollywood and in the National Enquirer. And the frightening thing is – this was occurring in three out of our four main newspapers on an almost daily basis. I think that it is time that our newspapers go back to doing what they used to do – reporting the news.

Eventually, as everything does to the media – the attack of September 11th will become old news and the papers will go back to reporting other stories – leaving the events of the 11th behind them. I can only hope that when that time comes – our newspapers will take a step back as we all have and see what is really important – and what is not.