Where Were You on 9/11?

[Pro]

Another thread inspired me to ask this - where were you on September 11, 2001? What was your job (assuming you were working in TV news at the time) and how was it affected?

As for me, I was ND at a 100-ish major network affiliate. I remember working frantically with my EP and producers to get newscasts ready that, I was pretty sure, wouldn't be broadcast. And I was right. But we didn't know for sure that the network would provide continuing coverage all day, including local news time. Our corporate office decreed - at 4:30 - that all of their stations stay with their networks and not break away. There was some gumbling among my folks - who busted their asses to get newscasts ready under the circumstances - and all I could say was "Look at it as an exercise in character building.".

[ISTHISTHINGON?]

I was in market 140ish....second year on the job. I was in the newsroom watching the Today show when it went down. Boss dispatched me to the Airport immediately. I was pretty upset in the car as I heard it unfold on the radio(had family in NYC)....needless to say I was a wreck at work but got the job done.

[nsj]

Weekend met in low-160s market. Tuesday was one of my off days, and I usually spent the day teaching at one of the local community colleges. After classes were canceled, I went straight to the station and did whatever was needed. I was producing three days a week not long after that.

[Gil]

I had just taken my first job OUT of television, and was in a conference room meeting with my new bosses when the news came. When the second tower was hit and we realized it was no accident, they both left to make phone calls - they were brothers, with a sister in Manhattan.

The rest of that day, everyone in the office watched the news unfold, and it was very significant to me that they were all looking at the news on the internet. No one even bothered with a TV.

[John M.]

I was the sports director at the ABC affiliate in Lexington, Kentucky. The ND wanted to send me home. It disappointed me that his first thought was that my usefulness to the station would be greater if I were absent. I told him that I understood that there would be no sports that day but I had plenty of work to catch up on if he didn't need me to report a regular news story on the biggest news day of our lifetime.

Less than two hours later, we started getting calls about rocketing gas prices and the ND took me up on my offer to report news. In the following days I felt strange talking about high school soccer scores in light of what was going on in the world. I suspected my days in sports were numbered and knowing that my contract was up the following summer I had a good idea what the number was.

The following September 11, I did a 9/11 anniversary story as a freelance GA reporter in Cincinnati.

[Produce man]

At present job, had taken the day off. I woke up and turned on the Today show right after the first plane hit. Watched the second plane hit live. We went to network for 10 days straight. No other programming, no commercials. Needless to say, there was no Christmas party, no Christmas bonus and no raises for some time.

[!]

On vacation in LA.

Called the newsroom back home. They were in the process of finding all the news staff who happened to be on vacation there and getting us together to do live shots on the closure of LAX, Guardsmen with M-16s in the streets, "Will it happen in LA next," etc., etc.

Hired freelancers to shoot and edit. One three-man crew had been up all night shooting spot news, and when their van rolled up, they opened the door and about fifteen empty cans of Red Bull fell out. They were so wired, they drove like maniacs.

We stayed there for a couple more days, just to make sure terrorists wouldn't attack, say, Parker Center or the Galleria or Disneyland.

[ October 31, 2007, 02:55 PM: Message edited by: ! ]

[Focker]

Working as a reporter for a 70's-market station touring tornado damage in a small town with the governor. Someone from his staff got a call and relayed that a plane had hit the tower. We thought it was a small prop plane ax or something and didn't think much more of it until I got the call to get my a$$ back to the station and stop off at every diner and gas station I could find to get reaction. Saw Air Force One fly into town as I was getting back to the station later that morning.

I didn't see anything live on the tube (just heard it on the radio as we were driving), doing everything from the field (at the airport), so I had to see replays of everything on our news later that night when I actually got back to the station. Worked 8 days straight, two days off, back to regular work week after that. Needless to say the 9/11 stories dominated for quite a while after that.

[TVMattNYC]

I was here, at work, at the network.

Ironically, I was *supposed* to be at that economic breakfast forum at Windows on the World that morning, but I had to cover a sickout and I ended up not going.

I think about that all the time now.

[Bureau Chief]

I had just gotten off work and was in bed when my kid woke me up to tell me I had better turn on the tv and then call work. My job for the next week was to cataloge and archive every inch of video that came in on the sat feeds and all local coverage...I did get out to shoot one package about a pilot of a commercial flight that was ordered to land at our local airport....right now. He told us that he could not imagine anything that would make the whole US a no fly zone except nuclear war. He landed with that assumption. He thought we were all toast. When we got to him he was covered with sweat and was white as a ghost. He was actually releaved that it was JUST a terrorist attack.

[kydocking]

Originally posted by TVMattNYC:
I was here, at work, at the network.

Ironically, I was *supposed* to be at that economic breakfast forum at Windows on the World that morning, but I had to cover a sickout and I ended up not going.

I think about that all the time now.Ha! Figures you would CLAIM that. I don't believe a word. You are just like all the celebs in search of publicity who claimed to be invited to Sharon Tate's house, or those who "just missed getting on American 11." Matt, I don't believe anything you say. Period.

[5w40]

Working at a network O&O in New York.
In my office in back of the newsroom, working on crew schedules due to be posted that afternoon.
Minutes to go before the next local cut-in into the network morning show.
Heard screaming down the hall ... scrambled down into the newsroom and looked at the monitor of the camera that faced downtown Manhattan, south of Empire.
The next month was a blur.

[TVMattNYC]

Originally posted by kydocking:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by TVMattNYC:
I was here, at work, at the network.

Ironically, I was *supposed* to be at that economic breakfast forum at Windows on the World that morning, but I had to cover a sickout and I ended up not going.

I think about that all the time now.Ha! Figures you would CLAIM that. I don't believe a word. You are just like all the celebs in search of publicity who claimed to be invited to Sharon Tate's house, or those who "just missed getting on American 11." Matt, I don't believe anything you say. Period.</font>[/QUOTE]I speak only the truth.

What YOU believe is of no concern to me.

[RollTide98]

I was a radio news director and had just led my 8am newscast (Central time) with the "small plane" that crashed into the tower a few minutes earlier. As I was reading, I narrated the muted television screen I was watching. The second plane hit. I truly did not believe my eyes.

We were in ABC radio network with local cutins for 22 hours. Advertisers started pulling away left and right in the following days. Then, a local car dealership called and bought up all the abandoned spots as a gesture of goodwill. Practically saved my job.

[ October 31, 2007, 09:59 PM: Message edited by: RollTide98 ]

[Jax]

I had just taken a job and was staying with family at the time. My nephew woke me up when the first plane hit and I promptly shrugged it off as an idiot with a Cessna. When the second plane hit, I headed to work.

During the drive, I listened to the radio. I was struck by the confusion. NPR started reporting the Pentagon but also an explosion outside the State Dept. I heard one of the buildings fall while sitting at a stoplight. It was something I'll never forget.

For the next 2 weeks or so I spent most of my time doing "new guy grunt work"; editing, logging and compiling all the video that was coming into the station. Watching that video over and over really taxed my emotions.

[a shooter]

i was in sarasota.

[SamG]

Disney World. Had gone to breakfast at one of the parks and was making our way to one of the attractions when they said the attraction was closed. Walking to the front of the park we found out the entire park was closing and heard people talking about the planes and that the towers were no more... I refused to believe it.

[DoneThatToo]

In a 100ish market. I was walking down the hall after a meeting and network on the monitor at the end of the hall when we should have been in local. Went and turned up the volume to find out what was going on.

Just looking at the video while they were doing MOS interviews and not understand why people were saying it was a small plane that hit when to me it was evidently a much larger plane. . I mean, look at the size of the hole.

I'm not in News but Production so there wasn't much for me to do in the way of coordination. Did go to the newsroom to offer whatever help I could, which amounted to tuning in live shots, setting up for possible cut-ins, etc..

Yes even in this small market we had a few cut-ins.

We are close to several large military bases and both trucks rolled out with-in 30 minutes of the second plane. Not that we were able to get much access at base . . .

[Clever Login Name]

Early that morning, around 2am-ish, I had just finished installing the last of the explosives in the South Tower, and was busy wiring the radio receiver which would ultimately detonate them. Having finished the job, I recorded a message and activated the call-page system to alert all the Jewish WTC workers not to come in that day. Took a call from Mohammed Atta around 4am -- reassured him this was still just a "hijacking" scenario and nothing more ... and that our plans to meet up at the Hooters in West Islip later that day were still on. Checked with Team 2 on the WTC7 wiring job ... they were finished but were worried because Giuliani hadn't signed off on the work yet. I told them to go ahead and leave ... that "Chick Deney" was aware of the situation and wanted to "pull" them out of there before the early-morning workers showed up.

7am, I headed to a little coffee shop on the Upper West Side, far enough from the action, but still close enough to admire our handiwork. Stopped at an ATM to deposit my check from the World Zionists Union. Settled in with my java, a copy of "New World Order" and a couple of crullers ... confident that we had done our job so well and in such secrecy that no one -- let alone paranoid geeks living in their moms' basements -- would ever be the wiser.

[!]

Originally posted by Clever Login Name:
Early that morning, around 2am-ish, I had just finished installing the last of the explosives in the South Tower, and was busy wiring the radio receiver which would ultimately detonate them. Having finished the job, I recorded a message and activated the call-page system to alert all the Jewish WTC workers not to come in that day. Took a call from Mohammed Atta around 4am -- reassured him this was still just a "hijacking" scenario and nothing more ... and that our plans to meet up at the Hooters in West Islip later that day were still on. Checked with Team 2 on the WTC7 wiring job ... they were finished but were worried because Giuliani hadn't signed off on the work yet. I told them to go ahead and leave ... that "Chick Deney" was aware of the situation and wanted to "pull" them out of there before the early-morning workers showed up.

7am, I headed to a little coffee shop on the Upper West Side, far enough from the action, but still close enough to admire our handiwork. Stopped at an ATM to deposit my check from the World Zionists Union. Settled in with my java, a copy of "New World Order" and a couple of crullers ... confident that we had done our job so well and in such secrecy that no one -- let alone paranoid geeks living in their moms' basements -- would ever be the wiser....and then you woke up, sat up in bed, and thought, "Dang, a lot of people would actually believe this crap if I wrote it down!"

[ November 01, 2007, 07:57 AM: Message edited by: ! ]

[Roy G. Biv]

I was in college and working at a 180's market station p/t. I was leaving a gym class and heading to our broadcasting building when someone called me and said, "The World Trade Center's been bombed." I said, yeah, that happened in 1993. They said no, it happened again...
I immediately went inside and watched the second plane as well as the towers falling and the Pentagon footage. We took the cameras and shot some video of people skipping classes to watch the news. The school finally cancelled all classes that day and held an impromptu prayer service in front of the school near the flag. We had just gotten a new School President. He spoke at the service. It was a very emotional. I was moved by the fact that everyone came together so quickly and there was a very patriotic feeling there.

I also had a friend who had been to the towers only days before and was flying home that morning.

[TAFKA wacowx]

Working at AccuWeather after an overnight shift speaking with a programmer friend in the lower level of a 3-floor building. He has the MSNBC pop-up news widget on his PC and at around 8:55 or so, a shot of a smoky north tower with the headline "Plane Crashes into World Trade Center". We thought, as others...it was a cessna. After a few minutes of looking at the story online, we decided to go upstairs to where there we TVs to watch. This was already after the second tower was hit. Everyone was watching the news reports and radio broadcasters were starting to come out of their booths because no one was taking feeds or doing lives.

The one thing I remember...and it was reiterrated last night when I watched a show about the plane that hit the south tower, was how clueless Couric and company were. Janice Huff, met for WNBC was on the phone with them on the Today Show as they were replaying the video of the second tower explosion. Katie kept saying there was an explosion and they weren't sure what caused it. Janice says "You can clearly see a plane fly into the building on the right side of the screen...right there!" It really took Katie being told two or three times by a 'pleading' Janice Huff and for them to keep replaying the video before she finally got it.

Last night they had the Good Morning America live coverage at that moment and Charlie saw the plane coming in and immediately commented and even said something like "this was obviously a concerted effort to attack these buildings".

That is the momemnt I forever wrote off Katie Couric as a serious newswoman...

The next 48 hours I spent more time watching TV than sleeping or working. I took an afternoon nap and that's when building 7 collapsed. I just didn't want to miss anything else. Got myself physically sick (flu-like) over the lack of sleep. Of course, I really wasn't missing anything as the nets just continued to show the collapse shots over again with maybe a few extra interviews from survivors...some great heroic stories btw.

I also remember vividly, driving in to work at night for the next few nights and seeing NO air traffic in the sky.

I also had the 'pleasure' of flying on October 11th (when the Anthrax scares were going on) and I was in New York City on November 11th, and went across the River to see Ground Zero from Liberty State Park.

[Hipster Doofus]

My wife and I were had our helmets on and were just out the door for an all day motorcycle ride on my day off when the phone rang. It was her boss, in a panic, wondering if she should close the store. Their building had been evacuated in 1995 during the OKC bombing because there were some federal offices in it, and now she was freaking out. We had no idea what she was talking about until we turned on the TV.

I spent the next couple of days helping pack trucks our station had set up to collect donations, since we weren't doing any weather.

[Stack It]

Three jobs ago, I was working nightside at the time.

I remember getting up early because my neighbor was moving out and making a hell of a lot of noise. I went to ESPN.COM to check and see how my fantasy football team had finished the week and saw the Twin Towers smoking. The headline I'm fairly sure said "America Under Attack," at that time I thought to myself somebody had hacked into ESPN's website. I then jumped to CNN.COM and the three major networks, it was the same thing. I turned on my television and sure enough, there it was. I jumped into the shower, threw on some clothes and went out the door. That was the beginning of one of the longest weeks of my life.

[ November 01, 2007, 01:46 PM: Message edited by: Stack It ]

[RoyMcAvoy]

Great topic.

I was doing my morning, 3-hour sports talk radio show. About 45 minutes in, as we're trying to comprehend all of this, we finally tossed to CBS Radio News on our air. The second building came down and they sent us away.

So my next move was downtown, to the TV station I did sports at. I was strictly support staff for the next week, shooting around town, helping set up stories, etc. Our weekend sports guy had a much more stressful day, as his brother narrowly escaped death at The Pentagon.

[mothball]

We were between morning cut-ins. I remember hearing the tones come on for a special report. I hollered at my anchors, who were about to go on the air, that there was breaking news.

There was no audio at first, just a shot of the Trade Center towers and the smoking, gaping hole. Then Bryant Gumbel started talking, saying that a plane had reportedly hit the tower.

I jumped on my computer and started looking to see what businesses in the WTC had connections in our state. All three of my anchors gathered, watching the bank of monitors overhead, trying to figure out what was going on and if we'd have a cut-in or not. My met had just mentioned the possibility of terrorism when the second plane hit.

I remember running up the stairs to the control room. I don't remember busting open the stitches from my recent surgery.

I logged onto the computer at my producer station and started writing down headlines. My graphics guy next to me would grab the sheet once I had three or four headlines and started feeding them into a bottom-of-the-screen crawl with details of what was happening.

We had a live feed we used to take from Washington every morning, and the feed was still up. I remember looking up to see the anchor there suddenly spin around and gasp -- she'd just heard the plane crash into the Pentagon and could see the smoke from her window there.

I remember the reports coming across the AP wire service on my computer, that several more planes were unaccounted for, and wondering if it was the end of the world.

One of my anchors came up to the booth and sat with me. By then, it was apparent that there would be no cut-ins this morning. She really couldn't do much more than be supportive.

And then the first tower fell. I remember Dan Rather dropping the F bomb, and my anchor digging her fingernails into my arm. And then I remember the applause. I spun around to find out why our audio guy thought a sound effect was a good idea -- but he had the same strange look. Turns out our sales department had an early meeting that day, and were having their own little rally down the hall.

I remember my director stopped, put down his headset, and started to pray. We were all in tears.

During that prayer, our ND had come up. He waited until the prayer was over, then quietly went over the gameplan. My anchor was heading to the tallest building in town for a live shot on what would happen here. And I was to stay in the booth until we could figure out what was going on.

When I finally got home late that afternoon, I was flipping through channels, trying to find something, ANYTHING that wasn't news coverage. The local religious station had a guy on ranting that "these are the end times... prepare to meet God" and I nearly hurled. The UPN station, thankfully, was playing a commercial free Star Trek marathon, and I fell asleep to that. When I awoke, it was still going on, but there was a waving flag bug in the corner.

I didn't see my spouse for a week. I didn't eat for most of that week. And everyone made an effort to wear red, white, and blue.

And funny thing is, my co-producer went home early the morning of the attacks. She didn't have a clue what had happened when she got in. When I asked her what was wrong -- she asked if someone had pulled a practical joke, because there's no way something like that could have happened.

[wx or not]

Five jobs ago, 80s+ market. Editing final copy and I get a call from my wife. She says that I need to turn on the TV. (at this point, I laughed out loud..."honey...I work in...what?) Fortunately, we were an ABC affiliate and got great feeds. Our ND walks in later and says we have just got to see the "professional reporting" from NBC, if for no other reason than to have something to laugh about later.

The EP walks in to my bay and mentions that we're going to have a prayer group. Put down my copy and never thought about it again. I have never cried so much in my life.

The station went network for the rest of the next three days.

[Obewon]

I had just gotten into the office after dropping my wife off at Logan for the 8am shuttle to La Guardia

[shooter007]

40's market. We were sitting in our morning meeting and watched the second tower get hit. After some silence, I sadly said, "I guess we know what today's lead is."

I was told "Jane Doe announcing her candidacy for the Senate." We were dispatched to the town where the announcement was to take place. Of course, the event had been cancelled and everyone had pulled stakes and left. I was told to shoot a vo of the building where the announcement was to have taken place.

9/12: I answer a phone call in the newsroom. Man says "When are you guys going to get over this New York City s**t?" Before I could answer, he said "What happened there is yesterday's news and tomorrow's history." Then he hung up.

I don't think I've ever been so stunned.

[Fargin Icehole]

Originally posted by wx or not:
Five jobs ago, 80s+ market.Five jobs in six years? Dude...do you even unpack? I didn't know Nomads existed in the USA.

[dinosaur]

I was an ND in a small-medium market sitting in a department head meeting, thinking about getting an airplane to head to the RTNDA convention the next afternoon. My EP ran into the room, turned on the TV and said there was something I needed to see. Watched, stunned, as the second plane hit the Towers. Ran for the newsroom and didn't even think about the fact I was supposed to be headed to the RTNDA until the next day.

[Mom]

I had just dropped my son off at school and rounded a corner on my way to work when our local radio news was interrupted with a story out of NYC that a small plane had just flown into the World Trade Center. I was wondering what a crop duster would be doing flying around Manhattan (why a crop duster? I don't know, it's the kind of plane I associated with "small.") When I got to work I went straight to the bank of tv monitors in the newsroom and watched coverage from NBC, CNN, CBS and ABC simultaneously. As I watched the first building on fire I wondered how many people had been killed or hurt but certainly didn't think it was in the high numbers. Then I saw the second plane fly into the second tower and started yelling, "Did that just happen? Was that live? Is that happening now? In those few moments my brain couldn't comprehend the reality of what I was seeing.

I went to my desk which was outside the newsroom and tried to get some work done ( I wasn't working in news at the time) but kept going back to the newsroom. When I wasn't watching the coverage on TV I had a radio on on my desk. I remember hearing at one point that as many as six planes were still unaccounted for and that there were concerns that the Sears Tower in Chicago might be a target or other high rises across the country. I lived in the midwest at the time but still considered picking up my kids from school. I was scared and I wanted them close to me. I didn't though. A friend who lived in San Francisco called to say that there were tanks stationed across the Golden Gate Bridge.

When the first tower fell, I was in the newsroom and watched one network (don't remember which one) which showed the devastation through one camera's viewfinder. The screen went black then slowly became gray and then you could begin to make out shapes in the gray. From that gray mass, two firefighters rose up from the ground, walked to each other and embraced. They held that embrace for a long, long time. That was the defining moment of that day for me.

[wx or not]

Originally posted by Fargin Icehole:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by wx or not:
Five jobs ago, 80s+ market.Five jobs in six years? Dude...do you even unpack? I didn't know Nomads existed in the USA.</font>[/QUOTE]I used to have an agent(you'll know why I don't after this...). "Great opp," she says, "90s market, good conditions." I fell for it, signed the contract, and the station gets sold. Three months later. Tried again, same agent. Don't worry, she says, I won't make THAT mistake again. (she was right, however, this was a NEW mistake in the making). This time, the station DROPS its newscasts, except for the 6PM (anchored by the MOST curmudgeonly old fart I have ever witnessed). Dropped the agent, and now I'm a much happier person!!!

[ November 02, 2007, 09:43 AM: Message edited by: wx or not ]

[Emily Latella]

I was at the bank. I went to the ATM and withdrew the maximum amount of cash I could get my hands on.

[NewsMom]

I'd slept in (hubby took the teen to school), and was watching GMA. I had the same thought as most: how on earth could a Cessna pilot have the incredible bad luck to hit the World Trade Center? I yelled at my husband (a newsie) to turn on the TV (he was in another room).

The instant the 2nd plane hit, I was (uncontrollably) yelling: "it's terrorism!" which annoyed hubby because he couldn't hear the TV. I grabbed several hangers' worth of clothing, and made a quick call to my folks to say I could not stop in to give my (gravely ill) Dad his meds, which I'd sorted out for the day. I told my Mom she'd have to give him his pills for the next few days, and she should turn on the TV to understand why.

Firetrucks passed me on the way into Washington, DC; tailgating one of them got me through the evacuating traffic (who's going to stop me for a traffic violation when we're under attack). I followed the next hour on my car radio, as the Pentagon was attacked, and there were rampant reports of the Washington Monument being bombed, as well as the State Department.

Finally getting through to my bureau, I was put on speakerphone to "be there" as I drove in. The crew sent to the White House was evacuated, and extremely nervous (they'd been told the run, there were "incoming"). Whenever someone in the field managed to get a call through, we kept them on the phone, getting their family information so we could pass along word that they were O.K.

Reaching the bureau, I ran to the studio and started narrating the scene in D.C., which was something out of a horror movie: there were small crowds, huddling around car radios along the route.

My sister-in-law retrieved the child from school, and took care of her; it would be several days until classes resumed.

Over the next 5 days, my colleagues and I took turns sleeping on couches and cushions on the floor in between live hits.

We were so incredibly busy, we saw almost none of TV coverage. It wasn't until the documentaries started to surface later, that I got a good look at all of that incredible footage.

[F4 Fan]

I was working at a small independent station as a production shooter. The station hadn’t done daily news for seven or eight years but did produce a weekly high school sports show and a business show. Earlier in the year we had been bought by the Fox affiliate in the area and had been told that our crews would never be needed to cover news unless a plane fell from the sky. Well this was the day.

Like many, I woke that morning and turned on the Today Show and right away saw the tape of the second plane flying into the tower. I sensed immediately that this had been an attack and that it was going to be a long day. While I was getting ready for work my wife told me something had happened at the Pentagon. I sort of brushed her off thinking that the Pentagon had issued some sort of warning, it didn’t dawn on me that it too had been attacked.

On my drive into work I listened on the radio as the towers fell. Once at work the business show producer (the former ND at the station) immediately sent us to the San Jose Intl. Airport to shoot the grounded planes and whatever else we could. The funny thing about all this was that we’d had a commercial scheduled to shoot that morning and as we (two-man crew) headed out to our van, the producer for the commercial quietly got in line with us and slipped into the passenger seat at the front of our van. As I was arranging the gear in the back I gently told him that we wouldn’t be doing the commercial that day. All he said was that he’d call the client and reschedule as he slid from his seat.

What I remember most about the airport was how quiet it was. Some police, lots of planes on the ground but hardly any people. The gates were all closed but the gate agents were just standing around waiting to screen passengers who wouldn’t be flying that day. There was an observation deck that overlooked the runways, funny but nobody had thought to limit access to it, and we got most of our shots from that vantage point.

We got the perquisite sound from the airport spokesman, grounded passengers trying to book hotel rooms or find taxis. It was really very quiet. One image that I will always see was a very elderly woman sitting in a phone booth, her luggage stacked next to her. The poor thing looked so lost, gray hair, alabaster skin, bewildered. I don’t know if she had called someone or had someone coming for her, but at that moment I felt a close kinship with her generation.

At the local Red Cross the line of people waiting to donate blood stretched out the door and into the parking lot. Some of nurses were shocked to find a news crew in the middle of the chaos that revolved inside their office.

Eventually we were teamed up with a reporter from the Fox affiliate and spent the day getting sound from the politicians, police and chamber of commerce flaks. Later that afternoon we made our way to a local Muslim center, it looked like it had been a school at one time. After a brief prayer the elders invited us in to tape their discussion as to what they could do to contribute to any relief efforts. The people were kind, patriotic but visibly shaken and ready to go home as soon as we wrapped.

The next day it was back to business for us shooting commercials.

[Pro]

Originally posted by dinosaur:
I was an ND in a small-medium market sitting in a department head meeting, thinking about getting an airplane to head to the RTNDA convention the next afternoon. You got to go to RTNDA? That was cut from my deparmental budget two ND's before I was hired! ;)

[Mayhem]

Working a small upstate NY station, waking up for the day when I turned on the tube about 30 seconds before the 2nd plane hit.

I was so naive because my first thought was, "what are the odds that two planes hit the WTC on the same day?"

My parents were flying to NYC that morning from Fla, so there were some horrifying moments for me before the origin of the flights were confirmed and before I could reach them on the cell phone because the ciruits were overloaded.

[Rosenblum]

I was in England at the BBC. My wife was home in New York and called to tell me that a plane had just hit the WTC and to turn on the TV. We lived in Soho and she had heard the plane hit and saw the smoke. She, along with a lot of other people thought it was a small plane. In the BBC newsroom, we shifted the monitors to CNN (I guess) and watched the coverage. A story for sure, but not really big news. Then, as we all watched, the second plane hit. The entire room stood for that moment in absolute silence.

[CKMD]

Originally posted by Produce man:
We went to network for 10 days straight. No other programming, no commercials. Wow...no local news at all? Nothing to produce?
Small market lameness. And you're still there.

I was 2 hours from New York and worked for several days straight as we had thousands of people in the towers that day. We had many local stories and certainly didn't let the Nets take all the time they wanted.

[TVMattNYC]

Originally posted by CKMD:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Produce man:
We went to network for 10 days straight. No other programming, no commercials. Wow...no local news at all? Nothing to produce?
Small market lameness. And you're still there.

I was 2 hours from New York and worked for several days straight as we had thousands of people in the towers that day. We had many local stories and certainly didn't let the Nets take all the time they wanted.</font>[/QUOTE]I'm curious.

What local stories could have POSSIBLY been more important in the days following the 9/11 attacks ... than the 9/11 coverage the networks were providing?

[kgsl]

I had the day off and was sitting in my kitchen eating breakfast and watching TV. I spent the next four hours trying to reach my sister who was supposed to be flying that morning. It was horrible.

[wxgeek]

Originally posted by TVMattNYC:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by CKMD:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Produce man:
We went to network for 10 days straight. No other programming, no commercials. Wow...no local news at all? Nothing to produce?
Small market lameness. And you're still there.

I was 2 hours from New York and worked for several days straight as we had thousands of people in the towers that day. We had many local stories and certainly didn't let the Nets take all the time they wanted.</font>[/QUOTE]I'm curious.

What local stories could have POSSIBLY been more important in the days following the 9/11 attacks ... than the 9/11 coverage the networks were providing?</font>[/QUOTE]How about local responses to the attacks? The actions of local law enforcement, charities, hospitals, etc? Seems there would be plenty of ways to localize that story

[TVMattNYC]

Originally posted by wxgeek:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by TVMattNYC:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by CKMD:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Produce man:
We went to network for 10 days straight. No other programming, no commercials. Wow...no local news at all? Nothing to produce?
Small market lameness. And you're still there.

I was 2 hours from New York and worked for several days straight as we had thousands of people in the towers that day. We had many local stories and certainly didn't let the Nets take all the time they wanted.</font>[/QUOTE]I'm curious.

What local stories could have POSSIBLY been more important in the days following the 9/11 attacks ... than the 9/11 coverage the networks were providing?</font>[/QUOTE]How about local responses to the attacks? The actions of local law enforcement, charities, hospitals, etc? Seems there would be plenty of ways to localize that story</font>[/QUOTE]Some stories SHOULD NOT be "localized".

Who the hell cares about "local" responses when the buildings in NYC are still burning??

[McCovey Cove Returns]

I had a rough Monday night. Went out and watched the Giants-Broncos game and had a few too many. I thought nothing of it since I didn't have to be at work until 1:30 PM the next day. Whoops. I woke up early with a bit of a hangover. I decided to see if my fantasy team had comeback and won its game, and what I found on CBS Sportsline's website was the WTC buildings in flames. So I hopped around a few more websites and sure enough, there it was. I clicked on the TV just to make sure it was right and not some big hacker attack, and CNN was going nuts. I jumped in the shower, got dressed and got work about 2 hours early. This began a run of about 2 real hard weeks at work. We did evening cut-ins, the shows were loaded up with stories. It was overwhelming. FOX was not much help as an affiliate so we really had to buckle down and grind out stories.

[Mr. Pratfall]

Originally posted by TVMattNYC:
[Who the hell cares about "local" responses when the buildings in NYC are still burning??Considering that no one knew where more attacks could happen, I'd say the "local" response seemed pretty damned important.

I was in Omaha at the time, and when they reported that President Bush was at Offutt AFB, it didn't seem unlikely that our city would be attacked.

[TVMattNYC]

Originally posted by Mr. Pratfall:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by TVMattNYC:
[Who the hell cares about "local" responses when the buildings in NYC are still burning??Considering that no one knew where more attacks could happen, I'd say the "local" response seemed pretty damned important.

I was in Omaha at the time, and when they reported that President Bush was at Offutt AFB, it didn't seem unlikely that our city would be attacked.</font>[/QUOTE]Yeah. OMAHA was high on their list.

[Mr. Pratfall]

Originally posted by TVMattNYC:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Mr. Pratfall:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by TVMattNYC:
[Who the hell cares about "local" responses when the buildings in NYC are still burning??Considering that no one knew where more attacks could happen, I'd say the "local" response seemed pretty damned important.

I was in Omaha at the time, and when they reported that President Bush was at Offutt AFB, it didn't seem unlikely that our city would be attacked.</font>[/QUOTE]Yeah. OMAHA was high on their list.</font>[/QUOTE]That's the point-- NOBODY knew what was going on that day. That day, our WHOLE COUNTRY was under attack. Can you really not see that?

[Stack It]

Originally posted by TVMattNYC:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by wxgeek:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by TVMattNYC:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by CKMD:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Produce man:
We went to network for 10 days straight. No other programming, no commercials. Wow...no local news at all? Nothing to produce?
Small market lameness. And you're still there.

I was 2 hours from New York and worked for several days straight as we had thousands of people in the towers that day. We had many local stories and certainly didn't let the Nets take all the time they wanted.</font>[/QUOTE]I'm curious.

What local stories could have POSSIBLY been more important in the days following the 9/11 attacks ... than the 9/11 coverage the networks were providing?</font>[/QUOTE]How about local responses to the attacks? The actions of local law enforcement, charities, hospitals, etc? Seems there would be plenty of ways to localize that story</font>[/QUOTE]Some stories SHOULD NOT be "localized".

Who the hell cares about "local" responses when the buildings in NYC are still burning??</font>[/QUOTE]Well, when a **** load of people turn out at the local basketball arena to give blood, that's worth covering.

[TVMattNYC]

Originally posted by Mr. Pratfall:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by TVMattNYC:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Mr. Pratfall:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by TVMattNYC:
[Who the hell cares about "local" responses when the buildings in NYC are still burning??Considering that no one knew where more attacks could happen, I'd say the "local" response seemed pretty damned important.

I was in Omaha at the time, and when they reported that President Bush was at Offutt AFB, it didn't seem unlikely that our city would be attacked.</font>[/QUOTE]Yeah. OMAHA was high on their list.</font>[/QUOTE]That's the point-- NOBODY knew what was going on that day. That day, our WHOLE COUNTRY was under attack. Can you really not see that?</font>[/QUOTE]No. New York and DC were under attack. The "whole country" was not.

And if they DID attack your little hamlet, then fine ... cover it. Otherwise, "localizing" 9/11 is not only silly, it's a grave disservice to your viewers.

[ November 04, 2007, 09:49 AM: Message edited by: TVMattNYC ]

[Fake Post]

I was in my local airport getting ready to fly when I get a phone call to "turn on the t.v." I turned on the Today Show and soon realized that my travel was over for a while.

For some reason, what really struck me (besides the obvious horrible carnage) was that the FAA did something it had never done in its history...
Order every plane in U.S. airspace to land. Considering that no non-terrorist controlled planes crashed, due to the unprecedented order, was an amazing feat itself.

It's one that I will never forget and I was more than a thousand miles away from the east coast that day.

[ November 04, 2007, 10:19 AM: Message edited by: Fake Post ]

[TVMattNYC]

Originally posted by Fake Post:
I was in my local airport getting ready to fly when I get a phone call to "turn on the t.v." I turned on the Today Show and soon realized that my travel was over for a while.

For some reason, what really struck me (besides the obvious horrible carnage) was that the FAA did something it had never done in its history...
Order every plane in U.S. airspace to land. Considering that no non-terrorist controlled planes crashed, due to the unprecedented order, was an amazing feat itself.

It's one that I will never forget and I was more than a thousand miles away from the east coast that day.I was also impressed at the amazing organization of the FAA.

[Mr. Pratfall]

Originally posted by TVMattNYC:
No. New York and DC were under attack. The "whole country" was not.Six years later, we know that. At the time, we did not.

[TVMattNYC]

Originally posted by Mr. Pratfall:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by TVMattNYC:
No. New York and DC were under attack. The "whole country" was not.Six years later, we know that. At the time, we did not.</font>[/QUOTE]Bull$hit. Four HOURS later, we knew it was all over.

[Mr. Pratfall]

Well, I guess there's nothing more to say, except that it strikes me as narrow-minded to think that the only thing worth covering that day was in NYC.

This looks like a job for GIGANTIC EYE ROLL!
http://i105.photobucket.com/albums/m211/harderrj/rollseyes.gif?t=1194203064

By the way, sorry to everybody else for ruining what was a nice thread.

[ November 04, 2007, 11:08 AM: Message edited by: Mr. Pratfall ]

[adam &amp; doctor drew]

Originally posted by Stack It:
Well, when a **** load of people turn out at the local basketball arena to give blood, that's worth covering.sounds like a VO to me.

[the Skeptician]

My only hope is that MattNYC will someday provide us with a link to some of the brilliant work he has apparently done in his career.

Then we will all be able to sit back and marvel at his genius. :rolleyes:

[MyracleMan]

Ironic... mo mom and I were sitting watcing the new History Channel special on Nostradamus, they, of course, mentione dhis predictins for 9/11. She asked me where I was that day, and I told her the story. I log on to Medialine the next day, and there's a thread about that very topic.

I was working my first job out of college, and at the time, never turned on tv/radio while I was getting ready for work... too much of a distraction. I got up, got ready for work, and left. My roommate was doing the morning show on a local radio station, and was long gone. The woman who lived upstairs from us wqas loading her kids in the car, getting ready to take them to daycare, and asked me if I'd seen the news. I told her I hadn't and she told me a plane had just hit one of the towers of the WTC. My first thought was, "Who was the unlucky pilot of the private jet who hit the WTC?"

I got in the car, turned on the radio, and heard my roommate reading the information from wire copy he'd just ripped. He said they'd have more updates as the story developed, and went back to local programming.

I got to the station, walked into the newsroom, and found everyone standing around the TV's. I had only been there for a few minutes when the second plane hit. We were all in shock; none of us could believe that this was happening.

I went to my office and put down my stuff, but couldn't stay away from the television. The GM told my boss that I was to assist the newsroom with whatever they needed that day... an extra shooter, driver, errand boy, whatever. They didn't need me, because there was nothing going on in our small market that would trump the importance of this event to us, and the rest of the nation.

The moment that stands out most clearly in my mind:

I was standing in the doorway of the break room, watching the tv we had on in there. There wasn't another soul around; the newsies were clustered around tv's in the newsroom, as was most of the rest of the building, and a few of our staff were huddled in their offices, trying to get through to family members in the NYC area. The room was bathed in the golden glow of the early morning sun rising over the hills to the east, standing in stark contrast to the horror of what was happening thousands of miles away. I was standing there by myself, captivated by the images on the tv, when the first tower collapsed. I remember how surreal everything seemed at that point, and thinking that whatever problems I was having were laughingly insignificant. I also remember thinking how small I felt, and knowing that the world would never be the same again.

We stayed with national programming for two days, and on the third, did a short local newscast with local reaction, what local organizations were doing to help with the recovery effort, etc. During that time, I built graphics, ran crawls on cancellations, and wondered what would happen next.

[Jane Craig]

I was on my way to work (my first job out of the biz) when the first plane hit -- early reports made me think it was some rich-guy private pilot who had a heart attack. As things became clearer, nearly everyone was gravitating to the one TV set in the place.

Because I was working on something that had to go out that day (and my boss expressly told me to stay put at my desk and get it done), I saw none of it until a ten-minute break midafternoon and had to catch up that night.

[TVMattNYC]

Originally posted by Mr. Pratfall:
Well, I guess there's nothing more to say, except that it strikes me as narrow-minded to think that the only thing worth covering that day was in NYC.

This looks like a job for GIGANTIC EYE ROLL!
Right.

And YOU wanted to break away from the nets so you could go back to your school board meetings, local high school scores, and teenage shooting at the 7-11?

No wonder people don't watch local television anymore.

[Pro]

Nobody's talking about breaking away from the nets on September 11, 2001. I doubt very seriously if any local station (other that New York, and possibly Washington,DC stations) did.

September 12, 13, 14, etc. were another matter.

[TVMattNYC]

Originally posted by Pro:
Nobody's talking about breaking away from the nets on September 11, 2001. I doubt very seriously if any local station (other that New York, and possibly Washington,DC stations) did.

September 12, 13, 14, etc. were another matter.Right. Because by the 13th it was "old news", right?

By the way, WCBS-TV's News Director lost his job (mostly) because of NOT carrying the network coverage during 9/11. Their air product, compared to what the network was providing, was an absolute joke, with ill-equipped reporters just running around, sticking mics in peoples' faces, asking for their "stories".

[!]

Originally posted by TVMattNYC:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Pro:
Nobody's talking about breaking away from the nets on September 11, 2001. I doubt very seriously if any local station (other that New York, and possibly Washington,DC stations) did.

September 12, 13, 14, etc. were another matter.Right. Because by the 13th it was "old news", right?

By the way, WCBS-TV's News Director lost his job (mostly) because of NOT carrying the network coverage during 9/11. Their air product, compared to what the network was providing, was an absolute joke, with ill-equipped reporters just running around, sticking mics in peoples' faces, asking for their "stories".</font>[/QUOTE]Look, Matt, as much as you don't seem to get this, people in other cities have their own lives. Four and five days after the attacks, they were not glued to the pictures of YOUR city any longer.

I'm sorry if that hurts your feelings, but it's true.

[TVMattNYC]

Originally posted by !:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by TVMattNYC:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Pro:
Nobody's talking about breaking away from the nets on September 11, 2001. I doubt very seriously if any local station (other that New York, and possibly Washington,DC stations) did.

September 12, 13, 14, etc. were another matter.Right. Because by the 13th it was "old news", right?

By the way, WCBS-TV's News Director lost his job (mostly) because of NOT carrying the network coverage during 9/11. Their air product, compared to what the network was providing, was an absolute joke, with ill-equipped reporters just running around, sticking mics in peoples' faces, asking for their "stories".</font>[/QUOTE]Look, Matt, as much as you don't seem to get this, people in other cities have their own lives. Four and five days after the attacks, they were not glued to the pictures of YOUR city any longer.

I'm sorry if that hurts your feelings, but it's true.</font>[/QUOTE]Of course.

I could see where the biggest attack EVER on U.S. soil ... directly in the heart of the WORLD'S economic center ... with events still unfolding day by day ... would get kind of boring after a couple of days for folks out in affiliate-land who are just itching to getting back to doing their live shots in front of darkened and empty municipal buildings, as well as long-empty street shooting scenes.

Sorry. My bad.

[Pro]

Oh, no doubt it was still a HUGE story on the days after, but by the 12th or 13th, it was no longer necessary to give up local news time to the networks. On the 12th or the 13th you were not depriving any viewer of anything by doing your normal 5/5:30/6/11(10) PM newscasts. The nets had 6:30, and for several days after the 11th, they even bumped daytime and prime time for more coverage. There was no need to NOT do a regularly scheduled local newscast after the 12th....13th at the latest.

[shootist]

i hit the gym early and was heading home to drop off gear and grab a cup of coffee before heading to work.

first plane must've hit right after i left the gym. my wife called me to ask if i saw what was happening. 13 years married at the time and i had never heard that trembling in her voice before...but i still headed straight into work...i knew things would be crazy.

turned local news radio on and was getting nothing...and they weren't going to network. i tuned (believe it or not) to howard stern just because i knew it was a live voice in nyc. i think i was in shock as i heard him describe the second plane's impact.

when i pulled in to work, my reporter was waiting and we were off to do our "local angle". it seems there was a professor at a local college who was a terrorism expert who had presented some possible scenarios to the pentagon...with planes into wtc at the top of the list.

as we're pulling into the university, we get paged...a plane down in the middle of a field a little more than an hour away.

telling ourselves it couldn't possibly be connected, we went to do the professor sot first while more details came in.

well...when we were done with the interview, we headed to the plane crash.

leaving carnegie-mellon in pittsburgh and heading to some town i'd never heard of...shanksville.

as we drove, more info came in and it became more and more real to my reporter and me.

having covered a plane crash (usair 427) in our backyard in 1994, i really couldn't believe i was doing it again. i didn't want to. that last crash was traumatic for everyone and i found myself telling my reporter (and friend) that i wasn't sure i had the strength to do it again.

when we got there, the job took over and we hit the ground running as one of the first crews on scene.

first couple days, we worked straight through...then went into 12 hour shifts as more than half the news staff made shanksville their home for awhile.

3 weeks later i started coming home on weekends. a couple of weeks later and we were going out there for "new information". now we go for anniversaries.

i don't want to cover another.

[!]

Originally posted by TVMattNYC:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by !:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by TVMattNYC:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Pro:
Nobody's talking about breaking away from the nets on September 11, 2001. I doubt very seriously if any local station (other that New York, and possibly Washington,DC stations) did.

September 12, 13, 14, etc. were another matter.Right. Because by the 13th it was "old news", right?

By the way, WCBS-TV's News Director lost his job (mostly) because of NOT carrying the network coverage during 9/11. Their air product, compared to what the network was providing, was an absolute joke, with ill-equipped reporters just running around, sticking mics in peoples' faces, asking for their "stories".</font>[/QUOTE]Look, Matt, as much as you don't seem to get this, people in other cities have their own lives. Four and five days after the attacks, they were not glued to the pictures of YOUR city any longer.

I'm sorry if that hurts your feelings, but it's true.</font>[/QUOTE]Of course.

I could see where the biggest attack EVER on U.S. soil ... directly in the heart of the WORLD'S economic center ... with events still unfolding day by day ... would get kind of boring after a couple of days for folks out in affiliate-land who are just itching to getting back to doing their live shots in front of darkened and empty municipal buildings, as well as long-empty street shooting scenes.

Sorry. My bad.</font>[/QUOTE]I know, you think we don't have our own lives.

Surprise! We do.

In the city in which I lived, people who looked "mideastern" were being attacked; one man who was wearing a turban was shot and killed because he might have been a terrorist; every couple of hours, "white powder' showed up and required buildings to be evacuated; and so on.

But, no, we shouldn't have been reporting on that. We should have been showing only wideshots of buildings smoldering in NYC.

Right?

[ November 05, 2007, 04:05 AM: Message edited by: ! ]

[TAFKA wacowx]

Originally posted by TVMattNYC:
I could see where the biggest attack EVER on U.S. soil ... directly in the heart of the WORLD'S economic center ... with events still unfolding day by day ... Sorry, Matt, but after the first 24 hours or so, there were no 'events still unfolding'. I was following the coverage as closely as someone in Central PA could and was a part of coverage too I suppose, as I did overnight weather hits on 1010 WINS. There was no new info from ground zero except for fading hope of finding survivors. Believe me, I was RAVENOUS for news about what was happening at Ground Zero, but like I said, after the first day, there wasn't much...certainly not enough to be wall-to wall for.

[FD2BLK]

I was working a later shift. I got up around 9A and then spent the next two hours in the workshop. The first I knew anything happened was when I fired up my computer to check my email around 11. My first thought was that it was a really sick joke.

[NewsMom]

Sorry to perpetuate the controversy, but.....

ABSOLUTELY the locals had news to cover! Planes were grounded nationwide---some of them had to land at the local airports, with travelers stuck there---not where they'd intended to go.

Nearly EVERYONE knows someone in New York or Washington, so they're desperately trying to find out if the person they know is O.K.

Is the state reacting? (Activating emergency measures of any kind?)

The Nets were good for 99% of the coverage, but how many times can they say the same thing? Local cut-ins were justified, if not that day, then the next day.

[Clubbeat]

I was working as an Asst. ND/producer for the ABC station here that year. Got a wake up call from my wife that morning. With her voice quivering, she told me to turn on the TV.

Still groggy I did. During the next few minutes I was trying to process the information when along with the rest of the world, I watched the second plane hit. I tried to call my mom and other family in NYC...the lines were busy.

Dressed in my best suit (In some morbid sense, I figured if the end was near, I'd better be dressed well before I saw God) and picked up my daughter from school.

I went to the newsroom and spent the next 15 hours working with the rest of the news team to cover every angle of this tragedy. We weaved our local coverage in and out of network (Jeb Bush was governor then so we had plenty of lcoal angles to deal with). We parked our live truck at the capitol and rotated reporters from there. We did phoners from the airport, Greyhound and called in Red Cross disaster workers to help us man phones at the station if people needed to call for more info. The local newspaper here ran a special edition...the first time since the end of WWII that they did that, and we covered it.

As all of this was going on, I was worried sick about my family. Mom, Dad and one of my sisters live in a NYC highrise so my thoughts about them being hit kept coming and going. My brother worked in Tower of the WTC...was he alive, did he make it out? (I later found out that he was reassigned to another office within his company that was nowhere near the WTC).

Still, I think...we cranked out some of the best coverage of any disaster at the local level that I've ever seen. Everybody pitched in and we found a place for everyone to fit including weather and sports (weather kept things even so to speak, with a short forecast as we were still in the middle of hurricane season. The Sports Director who had plenty of news experience, helped make calls, get people to the station for interviews etc)

Two days later, as I was boothing our 6p, I was searching the web for names of the dead and found one...a childhood friend who was a NYPD officer. He was killed rushing back into the towers as they collapsed. He had gotten off his 8am shift when all Hell broke loose. This still haunts me becasue I know he was inspired to become a cop because as Boy Scouts, together, we often talked about helping others and in many ways did just that...as Scouts (I stll live by the motto "Be Prepared"). When I found out that he died in that craziness I was never so proud of this guy. While I had not seen him in many years, I still remember him and our talks about being cops in NYC (we wanted to be like John Shaft, from the movie). Most important, we wanted to help people whenever they needed. He went on to fullfill his destiny...God Bless him for that!

Thanks Pro for starting this thread...I was feeling kinda down today and when I came across this, it has helped me come back to reality. Sorry if it was long but sometimes being reminded how good you have it (yes we all have it good if only for the simple fact that we're all alive to recount our experiences), helps you to appreciate life.

[ November 05, 2007, 11:21 AM: Message edited by: Clubbeat ]

[Allegheny Co.]

Originally posted by Pro:
Nobody's talking about breaking away from the nets on September 11, 2001. I doubt very seriously if any local station (other that New York, and possibly Washington,DC stations) did.

September 12, 13, 14, etc. were another matter.Yes--Pittsburgh broke away from the networks when the plane went down in Shanksville. I was doing something at a high school and the kids were all watching the news (until the idiot principal decided they should get on with their learning). The local NBC affiliate broke in with a local report of a plane having gone down in Shanksville. At the time I couldn't believe they would go local. Guess what--Shanksville WAS part of the story.

We had 2 sat trucks that were both sent to Shanksville. One of the newer smaller KU trucks and a larger KU truck. Both were used by many networks for uplinks. One operator was literally thrown on the truck (well--he volunteered). There was a shuttle system set up to get both truck operators food and clothes for the next few days. Talk about a baptism under fire.

[Pro]

Originally posted by Allegheny Co.:
Yes--Pittsburgh broke away from the networks when the plane went down in Shanksville. I was doing something at a high school and the kids were all watching the news (until the idiot principal decided they should get on with their learning). The local NBC affiliate broke in with a local report of a plane having gone down in Shanksville. At the time I couldn't believe they would go local. Guess what--Shanksville WAS part of the story.Of course. I feel bad that I forgot about that.

OK, let me revise that to markets besideds New York Washington and Pittsbugh. And maybe even Boston, some of the flights originated from there.

[writer2]

I worked late at CNN the night before. Woke up, turned on TV, which was tuned to CNN. Saw tower smoking; Aaron Brown reporting from a rooftop in midtown. Saw second plane hit tower, saw that it was a commercial airliner. Got dressed and went to work without waiting for a phone call.

Edit to add: The story hit me hard for several reasons. (I know it hit all of us hard.) I had lived in New York for years and love the city, so all the video coming in was like pictures of my hometown.
I also knew someone (though not intimately) who was onboard one of the planes that struck the twin towers.

[newz2me]

I was in my next to the last day at my old station. I was starting at my new station on Monday the 17th and was planning on taking a 4 day weekend. I woke up to the local DJ's saying something about a plane crash and a TV antenna. I thought some yokel hit the transmitter outside of town, turned on the Today Show to realize it was the Twin Towers.
Being a native from the area I remember the story about the B-25 hitting the Empire State Building in 1945 so I though it was just some idiot who wasn't watching what he was doing or some drunk idiot who thought it would be cool to go between the towers anything but terrorism. I watched for a couple of minutes before heading for the shower. When I returned, both towers were on fire, that's when I got a chill down my spine. I quickly dressed and headed to work. I was in such a focus mode that it took me an hour or so to realize that maybe I should call my folks. None of my realitives work in NYC but you never know. Thankfully everyone was accounted for. My Dad did see the second explosion from the NJ Turnpike but from his angle he couldn't see a plane, just a fireball.
Long story short, I volunteered to finish out the rest of the week and help out with all our coverage. My old ND was very appreciative. What a way to leave your old job.

[Bureau Chief]

I am starting a new thread and want some input on some of these comments. We are assembling a "getaway kit". I would like to know what other stations have set up for emergency evacs. Come on over to the new thread and have at it.

[CKMD]

TV MATT...

I guess you missed the part that said 10,000 people from "my hamlet" travel to NYC daily to work...via buses and trains. 2,000 worked in the WTC. So it was local....we had people die in the attacks.
And we had Network coverage all other times other than our alloted news time as well as local cut-ins...to tell people what was happening with their loved ones STUCK IN NYC.
So, get of your phucking high horse. The attaks affected THE ENTIRE COUNTRY that day. We are LOCAL NEWS PROVIDERS. If your LOCAL NEWS PROVIDER decided that LOCAL NEWS that day was unimportant, that's a disservice to your community.

It's people like you that remind me why the media is getting such a bad rap.

[Clever Login Name]

Sometimes I think Matt pisses us off just for the hell of it.