The New York Times This image provided by the New York Times shows its April 16, 1912, front page coverage of the Titanic disaster. The largest ship afloat at the time, the Titanic sank in the north Atlantic Ocean on April 15, 1912, after colliding with an iceberg during her maiden voyage from Southampton to New York City. It was a news story that would change the news. From the moment that a brief Associated Press dispatch relayed the wireless distress call _ "Titanic ... reported having struck an iceberg. The steamer said that immediate assistance was required" _ reporters and editors scrambled. In ways that seem familiar today, they adapted a dawning newsgathering technology and organized saturation coverage and managed to cover what one authority calls "the first really, truly international news event where anyone anywhere in the world could pick up a newspaper and read about it."