April 16, 1912 Daily Mirror newspaper

newspaper

The April 16, 1912 edition of The Daily Mirror, with the TITANIC on the front page and the headline "Disaster to the TITANIC: World's largest ship collides with an iceberg in the Atlantic during her maiden voyage. Inside, on page 3, the headlines are "Everyone Safe/Morning of suspense ends in message of relief/Passengers taken off/ Helpless giant being towed to port.." There is extensive reporting, continuing for three pages, about the disaster, but all of it assumes that the TITANIC was saved after "TITANIC's wireless signal brings vessels to scene." The truth, of course, was much grimmer-- the ship was on the bottom of the ocean by the time this newspaper was printed and rescuers did not arrive until long after the TITANIC had sunk. The Daily Mirror was not the only newspaper to get the story wrong. American newspapers had an advantage because of their time zones, but the news of TITANIC's distress came in just before morning news deadlines, and many of them printed stories like this. The New York Times was one exception; its editor Carr Van Anda listened to the signals, noted that the TITANIC had gone silent, and became convinced that the ship was sunk, and that was the headline he ran. In some cities like Indianapolis, one newspaper ran the "TITANIC safe" story while the other newspaper was more cautious. The morse code signals that night were confusing and incomplete, and there was indeed a message saying "The ship is being towed to Halifax and everyone is OK"-- but that message was about a completely different ship. The White Star Line, also still in the dark, insisted at 8 am New York time that the ship was unsinkable. It was not until 7 pm on April 15 that the New York office of White Star finally shared with the press gathered there that the ship was sunk, and not until 8:45 that "great loss of life" was mentioned. By the time that news made it to England, it seems, the Daily Mirror had already printed this April 16 edition.