September 11th attacks - 19 years ago

Sir Trev for ITV continuity announcer!

I'm surprised they didn't drop the Powergen sponsor stings for a static slide or something similar.

Yes, incredibly frustrating the way it's cut up into 30 second chunks, makes it very hard to attempt to watch properly.

Also, don't try and read the comments on any 9/11 related video, they're full of truther idiots who make me incredibly angry.

The thing about the BBC News coverage is that it took absolutely ages to get a familiar face on there. As mentioned, in those days News 24 was simulcast on BBC1 far less frequently and they had their own presenter line-up who rarely appeared on the main bulletins, so for most viewers they'd have been pretty much unknown. John Nicolson and Valerie Sanderson broke the news, then Peter Dobbie took over, then after about two hours Gavin Esler came on - who was senior News 24 presenter at the time, and a bit more well-known - but it wasn't until around 5pm that Huw Edwards finally appeared. It made the situation perhaps even more bizarre because you were hearing about it from people you'd never seen before.

Actually it was John Terrett who broke the news on News 24 - it happened during the business roundup and he talked over the pictures for a while before John & Valerie took over.

This video was the BBC Choice rerun of the day on News 24 but it's been blocked as whoever had the rights to the music which was overlaid presumably complained, which is a bit petty in the circumstances. I used to watch it now and again as it's still the most major breaking news story that's happened in my lifetime.

Exactly right, I was one of the few people who was viewing live at the time! He was pretty much lost at the beginning, footage was shown very quickly after the first plane hit and it was unclear quite what were we looking at - was it a fire, then was it a small plane etc.

The business roundup was a proper segment though - he would have been the sole host for the slot, it wasn't just a 5 minute thing.

Does anyone remember who was presenting the rolling coverage on C5? I remember so many elements of that day vividly, but in my mind it’s Kirsty Young (who of course was on ITV).

Yes the BBC N24 coverage was not particularly stellar in those first minutes. I was watching from those first seconds with John Terrett. John Nicholson seemed rather at sea with it all, though I appreciate it was all hugely confusing. I’m sure he didn’t really seem to really notice the second plane hitting either.

I always find it quite interesting to read these kind of discussion. I was born a couple of weeks before the horrific attacks of September 11th, so I have no memories of that day. However, I do quite frequently find myself going back and watching/listening to coverage of major news stories, and this includes 9/11. The most interesting coverage (in my opinion) was that of New York's rolling news station 1010 WINS, which managed to sum up the emotions that everybody was seemingly experiencing whilst still communicating the latest information.

Vague memory of Rob Butler being on air but not 100% sure.

I was at college that day and more and more people were talking about it as the day went on (although surprisingly none of the teachers mentioned it). A friend send me a text saying something like “Plane crash in America. Bad ****.” Went straight to ITV when I got home and it didn’t really hit me how big it was until then.

Programme Editor....Craig Oliver
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Craig_Oliver_(British_journalist)

Posted without further comment.

Compared to the shocking coverage on BBC World, News 24 was very good. Terrett (who of course had lots of experience of Wall Street) was anything but 'pretty much lost at the beginning' - he'd mentioned Osama Bin Laden before the second tower was hit! Nicolson was also very good, immediately realising a large plane had hit when he saw the second explosion. Val Sanderson wasn't particularly bright, at one point suggesting the second plane may have hit because of the gusts of air caused by the first crash!

The BBC World newsreader (I'm sorry I don't know her name) was terrible. She didn't realise the second plane had hit - despite it clearly happening on screen - for over 4 minutes! FOUR MINUTES! News 24 reported it live as it happened as they were blessed with eyes!

Same here, I enjoyed Squawk Box because the line-up had so much dynamism, especially the banter between the co-hosts when they'd go off topic between analysing the markets.

Going back to CNBC's 9/11 coverage and it's so easy to forget Alina Cho's role on that morning, she stayed composed and professional throughout as every horrible bit of news came in.

It's always interesting watching back coverage of big unfolding events like this, when people didn't know what was happening, and you hear things reported that with hindsight sound bizarre, but of course seem plausible on the confusion of the day. I know the ITV coverage had the caption say "Manhattan is ablaze" for a while after the first tower collapsed because of all the dust rising. Watching that CNBC coverage, they also state several times that there was a car bomb outside the pentagon, which also never happened.

These sort of things though are partly how the conspiracy theories start though. "They said this happened on the news, then we never heard any more about it, it must be a cover up".