On Friday, several journalists across multiple media outlets emotionally remembered where they were on 9/11, connections they had to the victims, and how they managed to cover the horrific attack on America 20 years ago.
At the top of CBS Mornings, co-host Gayle King choked up just reflecting on the 20th anniversary. ABC’s Good Morning America brought on former anchor Charlie Gibson to recall what it was like covering that terrible day as it unfolded live on television, he remembered thinking to himself “you’ll never do a more important broadcast than you’re about to do.”
Over on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, co-host Willie Geist struggled to talk about losing neighbors and close family friends in the attacks, though poignantly told of his then-pregnant sister-in-law narrowly escaping the twin towers and his now-19-year-old nephew just entering his sophomore year of college. Fellow co-host Mika Brzezinski described how she had just started a new job working for CBS News in New York on that fateful day.
Later in the day, CNN’s John King remembered covering the White House on September 11th, 2001 and how “staff and reporters were ordered to evacuate, told to run.” Back on MSNBC, anchor Andrea Mitchell recalled: “At a time before social media, Americans were transfixed by watching it live on television. Were we all bound together by broadcasters…”
A clip followed of late Meet the Press host Tim Russert interviewing then-Vice President Dick Cheney just days later about how the nation would respond to the heinous acts. Cheney replied: “If you provide sanctuary to terrorists, you face the full wrath of the United States.”
Mitchell declared: “The country united behind our leaders, there was no talk of a blue or red state America after those hijackers hit New York, Washington, and Shanksville, Pennsylvania.”