September 11th attacks - 19 years ago

Obviously though people want information NOW without having to wait, even more so now than back in 2001, so it's hardly suprising how much inaccurate information gets reported.

I think the mentioning of the possibility that a third plane caused the south tower to collapse continues for quite a while. I did watch through all the video the other day, but I'm not sitting through it all again in a hurry. Watching videos of different news coverage, it's interesting how long it takes many of them to realise that the tower had collapsed, though it's understandable why, I imagine nobody thought it was even a possibility until it happened.

I think it was even later than that when Huw finally popped up, Steve. Huw only appeared for the Six which wasn't simulcast on News 24 as far as I can remember. I think it remained only on BBC1 whilst the News 24 presenter continued on News 24. I think Huw might have done a short stint on News 24 in the evening after he had done the Six. I'm sure I remember him being in N8. Then, of course, they brought in the really big guns by about 8pm when a news special with David Dimbleby went out across the networks, I seem to recall, even on BBC World I think.


I agree - I watched the BBC all day on 9/11 so I think this is probably the first time I have heard the music that ITV chose for its montage. I see what they were trying to do but it didn't work. The music just isn't sombre enough and really clashes with the gravity of the pictures. They'd have been better off choosing something a lot more haunting. Instead, it just sounds like any old piece of generic classical music.

The music selection for the BBC World montages was much better. It was the first outing for the news special music that had just been composed for The World Today that had only just re-launched days before 9/11. It was, and remains, one of David Lowe's finest creations in my opinion. I also thought it was effective when it was extended and used during the Iraq War in 2003.

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In terms of my own memories of the day - like many others, I was about 15 years old and was at high school that day. When it happened I think I was playing badminton during P.E. followed by Chemistry. The first anyone heard of it was when we finished school after Chemistry. Nobody in my class had heard anything about it by then - but why would we? No internet/PCs in the classroom and as it was a GCSE lesson we didn't have a TV on. Mobile phones were the old Nokia ones for the most part and nothing like modern smartphones. For all intents and purposes we were effectively cut off whilst in class. I guess that sounds odd to young people now. We existed quite happily in a world that wasn't constantly connected!

Anyway, I came out of school and my mum told me what had happened when she picked me up. I think I had a medical appointment straight after school, so I probably ended up first seeing the pictures of it on the TV by about 4.30/5pm. I think I stayed glued to News 24 all evening.

There are probably four major news stories for which I really recall the rolling coverage vividly. The first was when Diana died in 1997, the second was the Concorde crash in 2000 (although I was in the US on holiday at the time). The third, 9/11, of course - and the fourth would probably be the Iraq War and eventual capture of Saddam Hussein. I think they stuck in my mind because major rolling news was so uncommon back then. Nowadays it all blurs into one because the breaking news straps are never off most news channels on a daily basis.

Beslan is one I strongly remember with Nicholas Owen on an extended Lunchtime News. Strangely I don't remember much about 7/7 at all.

My mother tells me every year how she had to walk home to NXG from Elephant and Castle with me in a buggy, of course I was completely oblivious to it all

God yes Beslan sticks with me too. I remember someone who was actually there in the gym hall talking to Nick on the phone and hearing gunshots or something similar. Was really chilling hearing what the people there were experiencing, going through hell, in the comfort of my own living room.

I seem to recall Sky News went ad free during the coverage and for at least 3-5 days after the terror attack, although I could be imagining that!

Oh yes, I’d forgotten about Beslan. I remember watching the same bulletin as you. Nicholas Owen was superb that day. In terms of 7/7, I was waiting to go out on a driving lesson when it first broke. Consequently, I didn’t see a great deal of it until later. Don’t remember much about it or even which network I watched.

Going back a bit, does anyone else remember the coverage of a couple of big trials in the US? I vaguely recall my dad watching the outcome of the OJ Simpson trial and I vividly remember the Louise Woodward trial in, I think, 1998. Those are probably two of my earliest memories of US news coverage. And I can categorically say my first ever memory of any news story was the Windsor Castle fire in 1992. I would have been 6 at the time and apparently I got so upset about the Queen’s house burning down that I wrote her a letter!

I don't think it has been posted so here is the thread from here on 9/11.

https://tvforum.uk/tvhome/world-trade-centre-35259

(Not sure why the time stamps are 12 hours out)

There was one of them - Michael Jackson maybe? - where they weren't allowed cameras in the courtroom so carried nightly reenactments from the transcript. All that sticks in my head from that is catching the bit with the actor portraying Jay Leno appearing with a prosthetic chin, which didn't add much to the gravitas.

Your mention earlier of not having internet access in school reminded me of being in a computing class when the teachers were starting to hear news of the Dunblane massacre. We attempted to use the school's one computer with a modem to try to find out more, but didn't get very far as I think the only UK news outlet with any sort of internet presence was the Telegraph and breaking news online wasn't a thing yet. (Maybe for the best given the context.)

I managed to miss most of the 9/11 coverage on the day as I was at a training course for most of the day - though once it had finished searched for a pub with a telly while waiting for my cousin to finish work; when we got back to his flat I remember going online to try to get in touch with a friend from Pennsylvania and also to see how the TV pres side of things had looked on some forum I'd recently discovered.

I was in LNN's news gallery, about to perform an equipment swap out in a gap between the lunchtime news, and the 15:30hrs. I'd just started unscrewing the first screw when someone rushed in from an edit suite, 'Take a look at CNN right now'.

I was told to down tools, ironically of course it turned out I'd have had hours to have performed the swap out!

Yep, I was overseas at the time, going between CNN (which was excellent) and BBC World (not so good) and I remember that programme with Dimbleby coming on and sticking with that. Would've been 3 or 4 in the morning where I was by then, so I must have been up all night watching.


Yes, Sky News had first done that a couple of years earlier for the Hutton Inquiry, so when the Jackson trial came along and cameras weren't allowed, they co-produced a reenactment with E! in the US. All a bit strange in hindsight.

I vividly remember Sky going very big on the Louise Woodward trial, hours and hours of it every day.

I'm feeling really old now, with all these stories of people hearing about it at school.
Is it only myself and Markymark on here who have been working long enough to remember all of these events at work?
The first one for me, although I was not in an operational area was Hungerford and then Kings Cross.
Then the likes of Lockerbie (in a main operational area with someone whose family lived in the town) and then Kegworth, Dunblane, 9/11, 7/7, and on and on the morbid list rolls.

The whole atmosphere changes in an instant, nobody knows how bad it can get, nobody wants to say anything to offend or speculate too wildly. People going on air are warned what has happened, so they don't make a unguarded comment.

With 9/11 the attacks around the US made us wonder if somewhere in Europe much closer to home could also be attacked - you didn't know what else was planned.

With 7/7 there were special programmes that evening from Central London, and one of my colleagues I recall telling me how he got on his bike to go into work with his wife begging him not to do it.

There will be more of these in the future, and we will all in this industry be on the sharp end of bringing it to the public.