The strangest thing happened to me on the way to Ground Zero.

Here in New York, where the natives are famous for avoiding eye contact and ignoring stoplights, people began to come up to me to tell their stories. A few were friends of mine, but most were strangers. I don't think they even knew I was a reporter--they just wanted to talk to someone sympathetic.

"Oh, God, it was awful...."

"I haven't slept the night through since this began...."

"I'm sorry to bother you with all this; you're so kind to listen...."

I'm not sure I was such a great listener, but this breakdown of New-York aloofness was a surprise to me. I've always thought of New York as vibrant but difficult - it's hard to go six blocks, find a parking space or a quick snack, impossible to find a restroom. Now there are signs on shops around Ground Zero: "Rescue Workers Welcome. Restroom Available."

I found myself smiling at people more often. Perhaps that's selfish - it gets you across police lines more easily - but it's also pleasant. It costs nothing to ask people how they are, and it seems to bring surprised answers.

"I'm holding up. How about you?"

Nobody says they're fine.

Digital Journalist: What was it like when ABC News World headquarters in NY was inspected for anthrax?

Ned Potter: I found out about the ABC case at home in the evening. I went online to find wire copy; there were references to the infant son of a producer. I began to shiver; a friend of mine - a good friend - had been out for a few days because her baby had been sick. All I could think of to do was go to the bathroom and wash my hands -- and wash them, and wash them, lest I infect my own family, even though I knew I couldn't.

I tried to call my friend; I never reached her. I wanted to cure the baby. I felt awful.

Somehow it never occurred to me to worry about my own safety. The next day, when the police interviewed me and later took a nasal swab, I smiled at them the same way I had at strangers near Ground Zero. Still, when I caught a fever from my kids a few days ago, I felt just crazy enough to call my doctor.

DJ: Were there special challenges working in an office while it was being tested for anthrax?

NP: It wasn't frightening, at least to me, just strange. It seemed a mix of apocalypse and pajama party.

People camped in others' offices; they called each other's cell phonesbecause their phone extensions couldn't be answered. The producer I work with shared my office with me - lots of confused callers had to be
reassured: "Don't hang up - he's right here."

Stories for "World News Tonight" are edited in an area known as "Slant" - an archaic term for the way pictures were recorded on reel-to-reel videotapes.

Slant was closed. In it were several thousand half-inch videocassettes, all carefully catalogued, going back to September 11. Need a picture of anthrax spores, or people in hazmat suits in Florida? Go back to the original source - the tapes we'd normally use were out of reach, twenty feet beyond a security barrier.

DJ: You were ahead of the curve on anthrax detection. How did you feel being in position, as it were, for the train wreck?

NP: I'm a science reporter; it so happens I'd been assigned, after September 11, to report on potential terrorist targets and whether we need to worry about them.

So - partly with some newsgathering help from my friend Amy Bowers, who freelances for ABC News in New Mexico - I'd done pieces on anthrax. Weshowed ideas for detecting and reporting outbreaks more rapidly. When Tommy Thompson showed up at the White House one afternoon to report there had been an anthrax case in Florida, it washed right past me.

I'd been doing careful, calming stories about how it would be hard to use anthrax to kill - as opposed to scare - large numbers of people. If we were right, I take absolutely no comfort.

DJ: What do you hope to accomplish in the couple of minutes of airtime you get on World News?

NP: I overuse a quotation from Pascal: "Apologies for such a long letter. I lacked the time to write you a short one." Sometimes I feel as if we turn that upside-down on television - we write short letters to people, even though fearsome deadlines loom.

Still, I went into journalism with an airy idea about doing the world some good, and I haven't given up yet. Maybe, in those all-to-short letters, I can give people some information that will help, or amuse, or provoke some thought. On rare occasions, I go home feeling as if I've really succeeded.