Three men guided millions through horror of Sept. 11, 2001
NEW YORK – “Turn on your television.”
Those words were repeated in millions of homes on Sept. 11, 2001. Friends and relatives took to the telephone: Something awful was happening. You have to see.
Before social media and with online news in its infancy, the story of the day when terrorists killed nearly 3,000 people unfolded primarily on television. Even some people inside New York’s World Trade Center made the phone call. They felt a shudder, could smell smoke. Could someone watch the news
and find out what was happening?
Most Americans were guided through the unimaginable by one of three men: Tom Brokaw of NBC News, Peter Jennings of ABC and Dan Rather of CBS.
“They were the closest thing that America had to national leaders on 9/11,” says Garrett Graff, author of “The Only Plane in the Sky,” an oral history of the attack. “They were the moral authority for the country on that first day, fulfilling a very historical role of basically counseling the country through this tragedy at a moment its political leadership was largely silent and largely absent from the conversation.”
The news media has changed in the ensuing 20 years, and some experts believe the same story would feel even more chaotic and terrifying if it broke today.
But on that day, when America faced the worst of humanity, it had three newsmen at the peak of their powers.
Brokaw, Rather and Jennings were the kings of broadcast news on Sept. 11, 2001. Competitive drive and ego had led them to that place. Each had anchored his network’s evening newscasts for roughly two decades at that point. Each had extensive reporting experience before that – Brokaw and Rather at the White House during Watergate, Jennings primarily as a foreign correspondent.
While they weren’t the only journalists on the air – CNN’S Aaron Brown memorably narrated the scene from a New York rooftop, for example – ABC, CBS or NBC were the first choices for news.
Unlike today, when a TV studio is likely to be stuffed with people when a big story breaks, back then it was pretty clear who was in charge.
“The three of us were known because we had taken the country through other catastrophes and big events,” Brokaw recalled this summer. “The country didn’t have to, if you will, dial around to see who knew what.”
Each man was in New York that morning. They rushed to their respective studios within an hour of the first plane hitting the World Trade Center at 8:46 a.m.
Was it a terrible accident? The second plane bursting into the towers with a ball of flame, and scary reports from the Pentagon, answered that question but left many more.
Initial network reports were handled by journalists of considerable reputation: Katie Couric, Matt Lauer, Bryant Gumbel, Charles Gibson, Diane Sawyer. Yet there was an unmistakable sense that the first string had arrived when Brokaw, Jennings and Rather took over.
“It was clear that it was an attack on
America,” says Marcy Mcginnis, who was in charge of breaking news at CBS that day. “You want the most experienced person in that chair because they bring so much. They bring all of their life experience, they bring all of their anchoring experience.”
It’s hard to convey the confusion and anxiety they stepped into. At one point Brokaw wondered aloud whether damage to the towers would be so severe they would have to be taken down. Yet viewers could see that, moments earlier, most of one tower had already collapsed.
Things were happening too quickly to keep up.
“The country needed some sort of stability, some sort of ground,” says David Westin, ABC News president at the time. “Where are we? What’s going on? How bad can this get? It needed some sense of, ‘There’s some things we do know and some things we don’t know. But this is how we go forward from here.’”
Those are usually duties handled by politicians who take to the airwaves at the first sign of a wildfire, hurricane, pandemic or some other disaster. Yet government leaders were kept out of sight for much of Sept. 11 until it was clear the attack was over.
Until late afternoon, President George W. Bush stayed in the air on Air Force One; then-primitive communications captured TV signals only intermittently, allowing the president to watch broadcast TV only when the plane flew over big cities.
The president’s absence accentuated the importance of the television anchors and, in fact, led to anger by some members of the Bush administration toward Jennings that lingers to this day. Egged on by Rush Limbaugh, they felt Jennings slighted Bush in the way that he pointed out that the president was out of sight for several hours during the crisis. Westin said Jennings was misinterpreted.
On that day, each anchor exhibited particular strengths.
Brokaw, who had just authored “The Greatest Generation,” a book about those who fought World War II, was instantly able to put the event into context: We were witnessing history, he explained, and not just news.
He called it the biggest attack on U.S. soil since the War of 1812, said the profile of Manhattan had changed forever, that day-to-day life would not be the same. “This has been a declaration of war on the United States,” he told viewers.
Looking back, Brokaw says he felt it was his primary job to give viewers more than what they could see for themselves onscreen.
“Throughout my career, I was constantly trying to think, ‘What’s the big picture here?’” he says. “I think that was especially true that day.”
Rather would tap his foot on the brakes, reminding those watching to distinguish between fact and speculation. Before Twitter and Facebook existed, he cautioned that rumors would “spread like mildew in a damp basement.”
When he took over CBS coverage, he told viewers that “the word of the day is steady, steady. Yes, there have been some terrible things happening but until and unless we know the facts, it’s very difficult to draw many conclusions.”
He reminded people that “the whole city is not in smoke and flames, not by a long shot.”
Sometimes his caution got the better of him, as he repeatedly referenced unconfirmed reports that the first tower had fallen. By then, viewers could see that for themselves.
“Emotions and tensions were high that day,” Rather told The Associated Press recently. “In order to cut through the noise, to help calm the panic, you have to be clear, concise and transparent.”