9/11 – A Media Perspective

The anniversary of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks has a profound effect on me, as an American who has lived in Canada for over five years. This day also has meaning for me as a person who was working for a media outlet on that horrible morning.
On the 13th anniversary of the attacks on New York, Washington and rural Pennsylvania, I’m ready to tell the story of what I experienced that day. I want my classmates at St. Clair College to get a perspective on how that day was like from a media standpoint – how we were able to work through the shock, anger and sadness to cover the story.
September 11, 2001 started out as a typical Tuesday morning for the staff at radio station WSPD in Toledo, Ohio. It was a beautiful late summer day. Just like in New York, there was a primary election going on, so the news staff was planning its coverage. I was just a kid in my 20s who hadn’t been with the station that long. My job at the time was to run the network board for the midday shows the station carried, Dr. Laura and Rush Limbaugh.
I stopped on my way to work to put gas in my car. I got back in the car and flipped on the radio, and the morning host was saying that two planes had just crashed into the World Trade Center. I thought it was a joke at first. So I flipped through the other stations, and of course, no one was laughing. I thought at first that small, twin-engine planes had a terrible accident. Then it was determined that these were jetliners, flown into the towers on purpose. It was a terrorist attack.
I needed to get to my station as soon as I could. En route, I was flipping between stations and all of them were covering the story. By the time I arrived at the station, chaos reigned. People were running around, shouting, asking questions, watching the TV in disbelief.
I entered the studio and saw the pictures for the first time. Black smoke was belching from both towers of the World Trade Center and you could hear the chorus of sirens still rushing to lower Manhattan. I definitely wasn’t prepared for what happened next. As Peter Jennings on ABC said “Good Lord,” the first tower came down.
I turned away from the TV and tried not to get violently ill. My country was being attacked on live television and there was nothing I could do about it. I could only muster three words…
“God help us.”
Once that sick, helpless feeling passed, we went into crisis mode and stayed on top of that story. I alternated between the network and live programming on that board the rest of my shift without even a bathroom break. The station suspended regular programming through that coming weekend. In place of network programming, we were live and local, taking calls from listeners, and being out on the streets helping to collect relief money for the victims. We had people on the street and at City Hall. We heard the stories of people who were at the affected places. It didn’t stop…not for a while.
I still get the chills when I think about it. But through it all, we were proud of ourselves for the job we did. It didn’t matter if you were the news reporter out getting the latest information or the programmer making sure the information got on the air. We were a team. We covered the story.
We accomplished the goal of reporting the facts and keeping the listeners informed. Isn’t that the hallmark of the industry? So for my fellow journalists – when a story breaks, don’t lose track of what’s important and don’t let your emotions get in the way of what you’re reporting. We all want the same thing, to learn as much about our profession as we can.
Still mourning the almost 3,000 people that lost their lives that awful day…