Mailrooms and newsrooms were evacuated in the New York headquarters of the most important US media organisations yesterday. This was after a case of anthrax was confirmed at National Broadcasting Corporation (NBC), and an envelope with a suspicious powder was found in a letter addressed to a prominent writer on terrorism at the New York Times.
NBC president Mr Andrew Lack said the employee infected was a woman working on Nightly News. Sources at the network said she was Ms Erin O'Connor, secretary to anchorman Tom Brokaw, one of the most prominent newscasters in the US.
The suspect envelope at the New York Times was addressed to Judith Miller, who, along with co-authors Stephen Engelberg and William Broad, published a book before the September 11th attack warning of the dangers of biological warfare.
In a New York Times article on September 4th, the trio warned that the US authorities were increasingly worried about the dangers of anthrax being used in germ warfare.
The third-floor newsroom of the newspaper was evacuated for nearly two hours when powder fell from the envelope as it was being opened. Employees were moved to other parts of the building, and 43rd Street outside, leading to Times Square, was sealed off by the National Guard.
New York Times spokeswoman Ms Kathy Park confirmed the threat at the office.
"No one has been hurt or is under immediate danger," she said.
New York mayor Mr Rudolph Giuliani held a press conference to advise the population that anthrax was not contagious and not to panic. He said there was a good chance the attack had been contained as it dated back to September 25th, when the NBC employee was infected through a substance in a letter believed addressed to Mr Brokaw.
Mr Giuliani said skin tests would be done at the NBC offices in Rockefeller Center where the third floor and other parts of the 70-story General Electric building were sealed off for federal health investigators.
All New York Times employees exposed to the powder would be tested for anthrax and treated with the antibiotic Cipro, he said, adding: "People should not overreact to this."
Another writer at the newspaper said "It could just be talcum powder. We have got scares like this over the years." He said he hoped the non-lethal result of the attack showed the terrorist organisation, if it was linked to the September 11th attack, was crippled. .
The woman infected at NBC is expected to recover, the mayor said. The form of anthrax she got is not the inhaled form which killed a Florida man a week ago, but a skin infection of the type sometimes passed to humans from animal hides or hair.
The scare has thrown postal services for news organisations in New York into disarray. The CBS news network closed its mailroom and is refusing to accept post. CBS said it had shut down its New York mailroom as a precaution and was not accepting any new mail. ABC said it halted all internal mail deliveries in New York and Washington pending a security evaluation.
Mr Barry Mawn, head of the FBI office in New York, said authorities "see no connection whatsoever" to the September 11th attack on the World Trade Center. "It's a separate criminal matter." The FBI was checking to see if there was a link to the Florida anthrax case but "preliminarily I do not see that".
However, the discovery comes after an FBI warning to all US federal and state agencies that new terrorist attacks could take place at any times. The heightened sense of anxiety in New York was palpable on the streets as people hurried home after work yesterday.
Mr Giuliani said the NBC case possibly dated to September 25th. The woman has been treated with Cipro since October 1st. The network said it immediately contacted the FBI, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the New York Department of Health after receiving the mail.