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Because the Challenger flight was to send the first schoolteacher into space, some 800 journalists were on hand for the launch, about five times as many as for the previous shuttle flight, and the number grew to nearly 1,200 in the hours following the explosion. But most reporters were hard pressed to uncover ; scraps of news, as NASA officials at both Cape Canaveral and the Johnson Space Center in Houston refused all comment. "By midafternoon there was a circling of the wagons," said a NASA employee in Houston. "There was a feeling of overwhelming revulsion toward the media vultures."
That reaction was shared by many in Concord, N.H., McAuliffe's hometown. TV crews had been allowed to film inside Concord High School as students gathered to watch the launch; when the tragedy became apparent, the principal asked the press to leave. But more than 250 journalists soon invaded the town looking for stories. At a memorial service Tuesday night at St. Peter's Roman Catholic Church, cameramen swarmed into the front pews, obscuring the view for many parishioners. When a group of Concord students stepped off a bus on their return from Cape Canaveral, they were greeted by photographers' flashing lights. "It was disgusting," said one angry parent. "Those kids should not have been put through that scene."
News organizations had their own complaints. In what NASA said was an effort to gather evidence for its investi gation, authorities impounded all press film from remote-controlled still cameras that had been stationed around the launch site. Several news organizations have protested the action. In ad dition, some veteran reporters of the space program were rankled at the virtual news blackout imposed by NASA after the accident.
The shuttle tragedy left its mark in some unexpected places. The New Yorker magazine, for example, had to stop its presses to change a cartoon in last week's issue in which a man seated on a barstool tells his companion, "I wish they'd shoot my congressman into space!" For all but the earliest copies of the magazine, the caption was rewritten to say, "I used to be a warm human being, but now, I'm sorry to say, I'm a bit of a swine."