News Anchors Recall 9/11 Chaos as Teleprompters Went Blank

The morning of September 11, 2001, began as an exceptionally quiet news day at CNN’s Atlanta headquarters. “Our lead story was whether basketball great Michael Jordan would return to play in the NBA followed by an update on the Washington, D.C., Capitol Building renovation,” anchor Carol Lin exclusively recalls to Us. “None of us thought the day’s news would keep the audience tuned in.”

That changed at 8:47 a.m., when an executive rushed past Lin during a commercial break to tell the control room about unconfirmed reports of a passenger jet crashing into the World Trade Center’s North Tower in New York City. Fewer than two minutes later, a producer told Lin through her earpiece that she would have to ad-lib the network’s live report. “The teleprompter went blank,” recalls the When News Breaks author. “The breaking news animation played, and up came the full-screen image of the World Trade Center on fire.”

As images of black smoke billowing from the landmark skyscraper filled viewers’ screens, Lin became the first television anchor to report the news. “This just in: You are looking at, obviously, a very disturbing live shot there,” she said.

When a second commercial airliner hit the South Tower at 9:03 a.m., Lin and viewers worldwide understood the disaster was no accident. “We knew America was under attack,” Fox & Friends host Brian Kilmeade tells Us. “I couldn’t sit in the office and watch, so I headed downtown with cameraman Scott Wilder. We made our way toward Ground Zero as the Towers burned and fell, walking through streets blanketed in white dust and past exhausted firefighters who had just lost friends and colleagues.”

Before the morning was over, two additional planes hijacked by al-Qaeda terrorists had crashed into the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, and a rural field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania. Across the four attacks, nearly 3,000 people were killed and tens of thousands more were injured.

“I knew it had to be a deliberate attack and said so on air,” Fox News anchor Jon Scott recalls. “Seconds later, I said Osama bin Laden had to be among the suspects. As an aspiring private pilot, I’d studied the ‘Bojinka plot,’ in which he’d hoped — but failed — to blow up U.S. jumbo jets over the Pacific. Unfortunately, he succeeded on 9/11.” Bin Laden, al-Qaeda’s founder and leader, was killed by a team of U.S. Navy SEALs during a 2011 raid in Pakistan.

Though each of the attacks took place on the East Coast, fear and grief rapidly engulfed the entire nation. “The shock we all felt was palpable,” says Los Angeles radio host Sean Valentine of iHeart’s 104.3 MYfm. “We all cried on the air. Callers were worried about friends and family in New York. None of us could believe what we were watching, and none of us knew what was next.”

For Valentine, the crisis was especially personal. His wife, Leilani, had just boarded a plane when the second tower was struck. “I was panicked,” he shares. “I called her right away, relieved they had not become airborne yet, because we really had no idea what was happening or what was coming. Leilani watched law enforcement officers and first responders on the plane get up and quickly rush off. I remember specifically telling her, ‘Get up and walk off. I don’t care what they tell you. Just get off.’ Almost immediately, they began a full deboarding.”

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Veteran soap opera star Kate Linder, who also works as a flight attendant, was supposed to get on a jet that fateful day too. “[My colleague] Brenda called me and said, ‘You’re not flying today,’” she says. “I went, ‘Yeah, I am.’ And she said, ‘Do you have a TV on?’ I said, ‘No.’ She said, ‘You better turn the TV on.’ I said, ‘I can’t call in sick.’” Ultimately, the Federal Aviation Administration ordered a complete shutdown of U.S. airspace an hour after the first plane hit the World Trade Center. Airports began to reopen two days later but with unprecedented security measures in place.

The attacks also had a significant impact on the entertainment industry, leading to the postponement or cancellation of film, TV, music and sporting events and projects. Former CBS News morning anchor and Big Brother host Julie Chen Moonves wanted to help in any way she could. “Planes were grounded, and I remember in that moment feeling like, ‘Oh my gosh, I fly X amount of weeks every summer to do this fun but silly little reality show. I’m a journalist. I need to dedicate my life to why and who is behind the attacks on our nation,’” she tells Us. “Then I remember going through the motions of doing it and feeling like, ‘What am I doing here?’”

Years later, Chen Moonves covered the Iraq War from the Middle East, where she learned that Big Brother had, in fact, made an impact. “I remember so many brave men and women of our U.S. military coming up to me with their disposable cameras … and they were like, ‘Hey, we love Big Brother. Can we get a photo with you?’” she says. “I was like, ‘This isn’t a silly little reality show. This brings a lot of family together, brings a lot of joy and some laughs, and it entertains the brave men and women who serve our nation.’” Linder felt the same way about her long-running role as Esther Valentine on The Young and the Restless. “People needed entertainment. What I love about our show is it’s entertainment, but it also teaches at the same time,” she marvels.

Others were less certain about rushing back to their jobs. “Many of us on staff thought about whether we should even come to work,” former Extra host Leeza Gibbons admits. “Entertainment is a uniquely American export, and it seemed the terrorists were hell-bent to target our way of life. The studios and productions shut down with an eerie sense that hitting Hollywood could be next.” But as time passed, Gibbons says she came to view telling stories as her “obligation” and shifted into “go mode.”

The Television Academy also responded to the national tragedy. The Primetime Emmy Awards had been scheduled to take place on September 16 but were pushed back to November 4 in light of the attacks. “The tone of the show when it did air became about celebrating the American spirit more than just honoring American talent,” Gibbons notes. “As a country, we were immersed in a patriotic moment of unity.” Even rival cities like New York and L.A. became “connected in a special way,” as Valentine says. “That morning and in the days to follow, the distance to Manhattan, Washington, D.C., and Shanksville, Pennsylvania, from anywhere felt a lot shorter. They were all close to home.”

Twenty-five years later, Lower Manhattan is thriving again, with a growing population, global businesses operating out of One World Trade Center and millions of annual visitors to the National September 11 Memorial & Museum. But as Kilmeade points out, “The city has never stopped honoring those we lost. It is proof that when we said we would never forget, we meant it.”