Dean Rotbart expands September Twelfth with new Paul Steiger profile

Dean Rotbart’s newly expanded 25th anniversary edition of September Twelfth adds a profile of former Wall Street Journal and ProPublica editor Paul E. Steiger, timed to the 9/11 anniversary. The book links Steiger’s childhood adversity and leadership style to the newsroom culture that helped the Journal keep publishing after the attacks.

Why it matters: - The expanded edition reframes 9/11 as a test of newsroom culture, not just crisis logistics. - The book argues that Paul E. Steiger’s leadership helped build a newsroom that could keep operating when normal command structures broke down. - Steiger’s career is presented as a model for how resilience, trust and delegation can shape performance under pressure.

What happened: - Dean Rotbart released a newly expanded 25th anniversary edition of September Twelfth: An American Comeback Story on the eve of the 9/11 anniversary. - The new edition adds a biographical profile of Paul E. Steiger, the former managing editor of The Wall Street Journal and later founder of ProPublica. - The book is available on Amazon at more information.

The details: - After the September 11, 2001 attacks, The Wall Street Journal lost access to its principal newsroom and its normal lines of communication collapsed. - Steiger was unreachable for hours and feared dead. - Journal reporters and editors still gathered facts, improvised workspaces and produced the September 12 edition. - That edition later helped the Journal win the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News Reporting. - Steiger served as the Journal’s managing editor for 16 years starting in 1991. - The new profile, “A Journalist in the Public Interest,” examines the experiences that shaped Steiger’s resilience and leadership. - Steiger contracted polio at age 4 and spent four months at a rehabilitation hospital in Haverstraw, New York, learning to walk again. - Rotbart later returned with Steiger to Haverstraw and visited other places from his youth, including his childhood homes, the Hun School and Yale University, where Steiger studied economics. - Steiger began at The Wall Street Journal in San Francisco in 1966. - He later spent 15 years at the Los Angeles Times before returning to the Journal. - After leaving the Journal, Steiger founded ProPublica as a nonprofit investigative news organization. - Journalists working under Steiger at the Journal and ProPublica won 18 Pulitzer Prizes combined. - The anniversary edition also includes a new foreword by former Journal executive Washington editor Gerald F. Seib. - The book adds reflections from more than a dozen journalists featured in the original edition. - The new edition includes an epilogue tracing those journalists’ lives and careers since 2001. - The original 2021 narrative is reprinted in full.

Between the lines: - Rotbart’s central claim is that Steiger’s biggest legacy may be the leaders he trained, not just the stories he edited. - The roster of former Steiger journalists now spans top jobs at major outlets including The New York Times, Reuters, The Boston Globe, The Washington Post, NBC News, CNBC, TIME, Bloomberg News, Politico, U.S. News and World Report, Condé Nast Portfolio, USA Today, Fortune, Newsweek and others. - The book uses Steiger’s personal history to connect physical recovery, professional discipline and newsroom independence. - Rotbart said the 9/11 lesson was not just about journalism, but about any organization that needs people prepared to think and act on their own.

What's next: - The anniversary edition will continue circulating as a 9/11-era case study in leadership and institutional resilience. - Rotbart’s expanded profile may also sharpen interest in Steiger’s influence on modern newsroom management and investigative journalism.

The bottom line: - September Twelfth argues that Paul Steiger’s lasting impact was not only what he edited, but the editors and reporters he taught to lead when the chain of command disappeared.