“A Praying Woman”: The Press Framing of Telephone Supervisor Lisa Jefferson and Her Conversation with United 93 Passenger Todd Beamer

Abstract

On September 11, 2001, a GTE Airfone supervisor took a call from United Flight 93 passenger Todd Beamer, who said the airplane had been highjacked. Supervisor Lisa Jefferson, a Black woman, stayed on the line with Beamer for thirteen minutes, until just before Beamer and his fellow passengers staged an attempted revolt and the plane crashed in a field just outside of Shanksville, Pennsylvania. The goal of this essay is to identify how the press framed Jefferson and her phone call with Beamer on September 11, 2001. After a newspaper database search, the analysis includes the following publications: the (Chicago) Daily Herald, the Chicago Tribune, and the (Tinley Park, Illinois) Sunday Star (as Jefferson was a Chicago native); the Somerset Daily American (serving Shanksville); the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (seventyfive miles from Shanksville); the (New Brunswick) Central New Jersey Home News (serving Beamer’s home); the Washington Post (which provided extensive coverage of 9/11); and the (Fort Lauderdale) South Florida Sun-Sentinel (which carried articles from a correspondent covering 9/11). The examination involves articles, headlines, and photos published in September 2001 through the end of the year and those published on the one-year and every five-year anniversary through 2016. This analysis uses framing theory to reveal one significant news frame: the “praying woman,” a Black woman of quiet strength whose religious faith helps her endure in a time of crisis. This frame is noteworthy, as it draws on and adds to the research that has recorded the use of news frames to depict Black women in stereotypical ways.