ORLANDO, Fla. – I was five miles away from Ground Zero on Sept. 11, 2001. I was working at MSNBC in Secaucus, N.J., just across the river from Manhattan. I had been at MSNBC for a little more than a year. I was hired to oversee a program called ?Newsfront,? along with a brand new anchor hired by MSNBC named Lester Holt.
Working at MSNBC was a news junkie?s dream! That first year was already filled with major news coverage of the 2000 presidential election and the controversy, chad-counting and pure craziness that surrounded it. I couldn?t imagine covering a bigger news story. After working on Newsfront for about nine months, I was promoted to Senior Broadcast Producer. I went from being in charge of an hour program to working with my boss, Ramon Escobar, to oversee the entire live news output of MSNBC. MSNBC had three major departments: Live News, Prime Time Shows (like Chris Matthews), and Taped Specials (like Lockup). I was responsible for all live news execution, which was typically between 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. each day.
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In that first year living in New Jersey, my family and I made several jaunts across the river to New York City. We would hang out in Times Square, see Broadway shows, and take the kids to Central Park. What a cool city!
I drove into work on Sept. 11, 2001, just like any other morning. My drive from Kinnelon, N.J., took me along Highway 3 heading southeast, past Giants Stadium at the Meadowlands and toward New York City every single morning. When driving along Highway 3, there is a moment where you drive up over a slight hill and around a curve. It was a special moment for me every morning. It was the moment when the breathtaking skyline and entirety of New York City first came into view. While Manhattan was technically about 10 miles away at that moment, it always seemed close enough to touch. At this moment during my drive, the sun was usually just coming up and the rays of light were just starting to kiss the east side of the mammoth buildings. The enormity of this moment always hit me at once and took hold of me. And no matter how many times I saw that same view at that same spot at that same moment, I had only one thought, "Wow." The Empire State Building. The Chrysler Building. The GE Building. The Twin Towers of The World Trade Center. Every morning, including Sept. 11, 2001.
After pausing for the amazing view on my drive in to work that day, my mind raced on to something else. It was going to be a big morning. At 9 a.m. we had an entire staff meeting planned. The managers had spent the past two months completely overhauling the staffing and scheduling plan for our live news staff (called NewsForce). This planning process kept us late almost every evening that summer. It was a staff of 170 people and we had to schedule them all in a way that would allow for the best coverage of news each day. Finally, after exhausting ourselves coming up with what we thought was the perfect plan, we were ready to lay it all out to the staff. We set the big meeting. It was scheduled for 9 a.m. on Sept. 11, 2001.
After ?that moment? along Highway 3, there?s one more breathtaking moment when you cross a bridge along Highway 3 up and over the swampy Meadowlands in Secaucus, just past Giants Stadium. At that moment, you are about five miles from the city. Another ?wow? moment. Of course, I didn?t know it on that morning, but on top of that bridge on Highway 3, as I prepared to exit, my final glance at New York City included my final glance at those two massive buildings standing tall over Manhattan.
I got to work around 8 a.m. MSNBC was a massive building and the most amazing news complex you can imagine. The outside looks like a boring warehouse. The inside is made up of huge ceilings, massive hallways, high-tech control rooms, thousands of TV monitors and a massive studio featuring moving anchor desks, flying monitors, and an extremely large video dome. Absolutely breathtaking. I walked in and smiled to the security guard and settled into my office. I spent the next 45 minutes getting ready for the staff meeting. I had my Power Point presentation ready, handouts on hand, and was prepared to answer a lot of questions from the staff.
I was heading into the meeting room to prepare when there was activity at the NBC Network Desk. The NBC ?Net Desk? is filled with people who work with NBC?s news bureaus all over the world. Robert Dembo was the manager of the NBC Net Desk. I asked him what was going on. He said, "It looks like there?s a fire at the World Trade Center?. Wow. I headed straight to the MSNBC control room. Actually, I sprinted. As we were preparing to break into programming with the fire, we got our first live picture from one of the ?tower cams? in New York. It showed smoke coming out of one of the twin towers. At that point, there was no reason to believe it was anything other than a fire. At first glance, it did not appear to be very big. But then, another camera angle showed a big hole in the side of the building.
The control room went into action like a jolt of electricity. Everyone was a pro and knew how to make live breaking news happen. We were on the air. The anchors were Greg Jarrett and Chris Jansing, our normal morning team. The two did a great job of describing what we were seeing, but we had no information yet. I immediately plugged my headset into the control panel in the back row of the control room. I could hear all of the NBC Net Desk people talking about the fire. No word yet on what had happened.
Then I heard someone in the New York bureau say on the headsets that a plane hit the building. That seemed impossible. I pressed the ?talk? button and jumped in. ?Is this confirmed? Can we go with it!?? The answer was, ?Not confirmed, but someone said they saw a plane hit the building.? Now, as a journalist, you want to get information to the public as soon as possible. But that information has to be accurate. I wasn?t ready to go with it just yet. But moments later, I heard, ?It?s confirmed! Emergency crews are responding to several reports of a plane hitting the building!?. I turned to the senior producer and said, ?Go with it!?. The senior producer pressed the button and spoke into Greg Jarrett?s ear. Seconds later, Greg said, ?We are now getting reports that emergency crews are being told that a plane has hit the building."
The control room turned into organized chaos. My boss, Ramon Escobar, joined us and helped direct the coverage. At that point, we all assumed a small plane accidentally hit the building. We watched our massive bank of monitors for new live shots and any new video. We received word that we had an eyewitness on the phone. The anchors talked with the witness who told us ?it absolutely was a plane that hit the building?. The anchors asked what kind of plane. ?A big plane." Wow. This story just turned from a small fire at the World Trade Center to a major story we knew we would be covering all day. All week.
There are about 50 monitors in the MSNBC control room. Our eyes were glued to the live picture of the smoke pouring out of the building. As I watched one of those monitors, I noticed something. A small fleeting spec. Something moved in the sky. It almost looked like a bird. But it was going too straight. I vividly remember this moment. I don?t think anyone else in the control room noticed it. I said out loud, ?Oh, my God.? Then I literally screamed out to the control room ?Quick, turn that video around immediately! Now!"
As the crew was getting ready to replay the video, we saw another plume of smoke on the second building. There was confusion. The video was ready. We replayed it. The anchor said, ?We are going to replay something from just a few seconds ago. We don?t know what it shows yet.? As the video rolled, you could clearly see it was a plane. Another plane. Hitting the second building. Every single person in the control room gasped. The chaotic, crazy, deafening cacophony of this nationwide cable network the control room went dead silent. I got a chill. I remember looking at my arm. The hair was standing on end. I will always remember the moment I turned to Ramon. We didn?t say a word, but our thoughts were exactly the same: "Oh, my God. This is an attack."
I don?t know this for sure, but I was told MSNBC was the first to show the replay of that second plane, confirming that this was no accident. Then everything happened at once. Our coverage went into overdrive. We were talking with witnesses on the phone. We were showing the buildings on fire. We were reporting on the panic on the streets of New York City.
We were then taking a live shot from NBC?s Jim Miklazeiwski at the Pentagon. As he was reporting on the attack on New York, he said, ?Something just happened here. I don?t know what exactly is happening, but the building just shook.? I then heard from our Washington D.C. bureau on my headsets, ?A plane just hit the Pentagon?. There could be no doubt. America was under attack.
The rest of the day was a blur. The twin towers collapsed. Thousands are likely dead. I said a prayer. A plane has crashed in Pennsylvania. I said a prayer. The president flew out of Sarasota and his location is not known. All flights are being grounded. There were rumors of more plane crashes. Rumors of more attacks. Just rumors. I spent the next 14 hours in that MSNBC control room.
During a breaking news story, journalists go into a zone. We are solely focused on gathering and delivering new information to viewers. The process of gathering and delivering that news can put blinders on you. You sometimes focus so hard on gathering and delivering new information for the viewers that you don?t have time to think of the enormity of a story. I knew it was the biggest story in the history of television news, but my only focus was on putting information on TV. I didn?t have time to step back and reflect. I didn?t have time to think. At midnight that night, I finally unplugged my headsets, walked out of the control room and walked back through the newsroom and to my office. My head was buzzing. Our coverage continued into the night, as it would continue for weeks and months. I immediately had to start putting a staffing plan together. We would need every single member of ?NewsForce? to work every day for several days without a break. I had to schedule them for 12 and 18 hour shifts. We had to break out emergency cots and book hotel rooms at the nearby hotel, knowing most would not be going home tonight or the next night or the next night. The staffing planning took hours, with the occasional visit to the control room to oversee coverage. At 5 a.m., I tried to take a nap in my office. I was so exhausted, but my mind was still racing. I couldn?t sleep.
In fact, I didn?t sleep for the next two full days. Our continuing breaking news coverage went on and on and on and on. I finally went to the nearby hotel a few days later. I think I finally got a few hours of sleep, but not much. I tried to crash at the hotel the next five nights.
Finally, six days later, I returned home for the first time. And for the first time, I slept well. I felt like I slept for a week. But it was only a matter of hours before I was back up driving back to work.
During the drive into work my mind was racing. More news coverage. More staffing plans. More special reports. I was consumed with how we would cover the story today, barely paying attention to the fact that I was driving. The road zoomed by under my car. Flying down Highway 3 at 60 mph. My first drive back into work since it happened.
Then, I came up that hill and around that curve. My eyes turned to the horizon. Suddenly, my mind wasn?t racing. My mind stopped. My eyes widened. I came to the realization that my ?moment? had changed. The skyline wasn?t the same. A plume of smoke rose from Manhattan. The twin towers were no longer there. It was at this moment that it finally hit me. And it hit me hard. I had been so preoccupied with covering this story that I had not yet grasped the enormity. The humanity. I had not yet mourned. I did not have the time. My foot came off the gas as my eyes started to water. I eased over onto the shoulder. I stopped the car. I stared at the smoke plume. And I cried. It was the first time since it all started that I cried.
It was almost a spiritual moment for me. The steel curtain between hardened journalist and human being finally fell and I mourned.
Minutes later, I put my car into gear. Pulled back into traffic. And as my eyes returned to the skyline I knew my ?moment? would be different from now on. I drove on. I returned to work. Breaking news called.