E-Mail This Article to a Friend Terror diary From cable news and the pundit shows to the dailies — how the US media covered the London bombings BY MARK JURKOWITZ

CNN was replaying Lou Dobbs Tonight last Thursday at 4:48 am EST when international anchor Ralitsa Vassileva broke in to report that "there has been an incident that authorities say has caused a system-wide outage on the metro system" in London.

Terror — in all its unannounced horror — had struck a major Western city. In the past four years, the nation’s media have chronicled a number of false alarms and some real incidents of terror around the globe, from Madrid to Bali. But given the venue — the London subway-and-bus system — last week’s attack may have come the closest to creating a real sense of 9/11 déjà vu in America.

From the opening scenes of chaos to the re-energized reporting on the nature of the Al Qaeda threat, the meaning of the London attack was processed through the media machinery and quickly served up on screens and pages across the world. Here is how the story unfolded.

Thursday morning, July 7: Horror there, fear here

The morning TV shows, normally full of perky anchors and lifestyle features, immediately signal to viewers that their world is not safe. Images of flashing ambulance lights, yellow-helmeted rescue workers scurrying about, and dazed victims of the London rush-hour bombings fill the screen. In a sure sign of crisis, the local-affiliate stations pre-empt morning programming to stay with network coverage.

Despite the carnage in London — by 10:30, the casualty count has already climbed to approximately 400 — the focus of television coverage shifts perceptibly from what actually happened across the Atlantic to what could happen here. And even as an ABC correspondent from London reports that "the mood here is one of surprising, remarkable calm," the television story is quickly becoming the growing anxiety — and the rapid ratcheting up of security measures — in the US.

By 10:45, ABC’s Charles Gibson is telling viewers that police in New York City are doing double shifts, and within minutes the networks are reporting that the US will raise the threat level to orange on mass-transit systems. On MSNBC, correspondent Dawn Fratangelo, at New York’s Grand Central Station, somehow detects the "unspoken fear" felt by commuters traveling to the city. In San Francisco, reporter Jonas Tichenor reports on bomb-sniffing dogs deployed to commuter lines there.

On the Fox News Channel, Neil Livingstone, described as a "terrorism analyst" (the 9/11 attacks did for experts in security what the O.J. trial did for lawyers), warns that US officials may consider limiting what commuters can carry aboard mass-transit vehicles. CNN airs a particularly unnerving report that a police officer boarded a bus in Manhattan and talked to passengers about what a suicide bomber might look like.

A few minutes before noon, with the public’s nerves increasingly jangled, new Homeland Security secretary Michael Chertoff holds an eight-minute press conference to announce the new threat level for mass transit. A half-hour earlier, CNN correspondent John King had called the televised appearance a key "test" for the new security czar. And Chertoff tries to walk a fine line between concern and confidence.

Even as he announces tightened security measures to a nervous nation, Chertoff explains that there is no specific threat to US soil, adding that "we are not suggesting that people avoid public-transportation systems."

It is barely lunchtime, and the London bombing has already come home to roost.

Friday, July 8: Powerful front pages and talk of an "evolving" Al Qaeda

American newspapers, relegated to the role of second responders in this era of instant cable and Internet information, try to capture the London tragedy on their front pages. They are caught between conveying the horror of the previous day’s events and trying to push the story forward.

The Newseum, an interactive online "museum" of news, posts 437 front pages from papers in 47 different countries on July 8. According to Newseum executive producer Paul Sparrow, "the most interesting new development was the fact that you were seeing cell-phone pictures [of the London blasts] on the front page of the New York Times. The cell-phone images became the iconic images. They were all over the place."

When it comes to the giant headlines and grisly photos, there are several major themes. One, largely the province of the tabloids, is sheer outrage. Both the Boston Herald and the Chicago Sun-Times lead with huge blaring BARBARIC headlines. The usually incendiary New York Post goes with the somewhat milder BLITZ.

Some papers focus primarily on the hard news of the day, the event itself. BOMBS BLOODY LONDON, says the Indianapolis Star, while the Star-Ledger of Newark, New Jersey, runs with TERROR STRIKES HEART OF LONDON.

But others look past the London catastrophe to drive home the ominous point that a familiar enemy has struck again.

MARK OF AL-QAIDA is the Newsday headline accompanying a full-page photo of a badly bloodied victim being helped to safety. STAMP OF AL-QAIDA? asked the Hartford Courant. But those tremulous observations are trumped by the chilling query atop the front page of the Syracuse Post-Standard: WHO’S NEXT?

Searching for that elusive homegrown angle to faraway events, the Delta Democrat Times in Greenville, Mississippi, lets its readers know that the few locals who happened to be in London are safe and sound. DELTANS EVADE ATTACKS: AREA RESIDENTS ESCAPE TERRORIST BOMBINGS WITHOUT INJURY, reads the lead headline.

On the papers’ news pages, some of the more forward-looking stories report that the London attacks bore the earmarks of a new, more decentralized Al Qaeda–style threat in which younger, more independent terrorists feel free to strike at will. The Boston Globe uses the word "morphing" to describe the terror network; the New York Times quotes officials saying, "Al Qaeda has evolved from a structured, hierarchical group to a decentralized organization."

The Washington Post takes the inquiry a step further, quoting an unnamed former US intelligence official who described "al Qaeda outsourcing" in classic American sociocultural terms: "You’re a franchisee, whether Burger King or al Qaeda."