Janet L. Robinson knew something was wrong the moment her secretary slipped into a meeting of top New York Times executives that morning to pass her boss a note. The message bore the first report of disaster that would be bannered across the front page of her newspaper the next day.

"We're in a real mess," Robinson, president of the paper, remembers thinking early on Sept. 11 — a thought that would seem an understatement, as she and her colleagues grasped how far-reaching the collapses in their backyard turned out to be. One Times editor has called it "the biggest story of our generation," warranting round-the-clock reporting and a special daily section of the paper first titled "A Nation Challenged," and now called "America Attacks."

So, for Robinson, it was something of a breather to drive out through the "picture-perfect" Pennsylvania countryside last week and visit Penn State for the first time. A three-day schedule of dinners, lectures, discussions and appearances still kept her busy around campus, and by most accounts, that's the way she likes it.

For five years, Robinson has been president and general manager of The New York Times newspaper. In February, she also started leading operations at the company's other newspapers, including The Boston Globe.

"She is an editor's dream — a business-side executive who cares deeply about journalism and who delivers the resources the newsroom needs to do its job," said Gene Foreman, Foster Professor of Communications, who held editing jobs for more than two decades at The Philadelphia Inquirer before coming to the university.

At the Penn State Forum on Friday, Robinson spoke to one of the largest crowds ever seen for the luncheon lecture series at the Penn Stater Conference Center Hotel.

In the aftermath of the terrorist attacks, she told the audience, the greatest gift many Times staff members could share was strong news coverage for a public that wanted to comprehend the chaos. But her employees were not immune from the fear and apprehension many Americans felt, she added.

"We are human, and this time, we are victims as well as storytellers," Robinson said.

She recounted the personal story of one New York Times photographer named Jose Lopez. The day the World Trade Center towers came down was supposed to have been moving day for him, Robinson said. Instead, the news of the attacks sent him dashing toward the scene, but he couldn't make it across Brooklyn Bridge before bumping into another Times photographer who was running in the opposite direction.

Like the hundreds of others escaping, she was caked in gray debris, but she had managed to shoot film of the collapse. Lopez gave her a hug and helped her clean up before taking the rolls to be developed at his local neighborhood one-hour photo shop.

Lopez called the office in midtown Manhattan, Robinson said, and told the staff that he would scan and transmit the images across the river, as if he were a foreign correspondent and not a staff member in the same city.

The next morning, Lopez found a charred envelope nestled in the grass of his backyard in Brooklyn. It had a return address for Cantor Fitzgerald, one of the businesses devastated by the attacks.

Because of the efforts of Lopez and others, New York Times readers saw some harrowing pictures Sept. 12, Robinson said.

One picture of a man falling headfirst from the burning tower, which appeared inside that Wednesday's paper, has sparked a lot of debate.

Robinson stood behind the decision to print the photo, comparing it to the way powerful images of the Holocaust crystallized the horrors of World War II for Americans.

Foreman, who teaches a journalism ethics class, agreed with the Times' decision to run the picture on an inside page.

"As shocking and horrible as it is, the image conveyed an essential element of the story — namely, that the flames drove some people to leap to their deaths rather than die in the fire," he said, "To omit that fact would have given readers an incomplete report of the tragedy."

Many students had free access to the Times' coverage of Sept. 11, thanks to the newspaper readership program.

In 1997, Penn State became one of the first universities in the nation to offer free New York Times every morning. Last year, students at University Park picked up more than 280,000 copies of Robinson's paper.

"Reading a newspaper each day is perhaps the single most important part of being an informed citizen," Penn State President Graham Spanier said in a release.

Spanier, who was unable to attend Robinson's forum lecture, has championed the newspaper readership program since its inception.

"We thank him for his stalwart support," Robinson said.