I was working for Bloomberg on 9/11. I was in the New Jersey newsroom at the time, a pretty young reporter covering business. Bloomberg had many reporters and editors in that office back then.

What I remember most, after all these years, is the eery quiet, both during and after the attacks. All eyes glued to the televisions. There were no words at first. We couldn’t believe what we were seeing. Many of us had covered tragic events before: hurricanes, car crashes, murders. But what we were seeing on television was something we had never seen.

It did not feel real at first. Even as we snapped out of it and got back to work, the eeriness remained. Because we were not only journalists. We were parents, children, friends, neighbors. And as the details kept coming in, the horror became all too real. Many people in that newsroom knew people who worked in or near those towers. We were covering the story, but we were also trying to figure out who we knew there and whether they were all right.

All these years after 9/11, the stories that stick with you are about the people. The victims, the survivors. The spouses who lost loved ones. The heroes who risked – and sometimes lost — their lives trying to rescue people. The dad who never came home from work that day. The family that waited for hours to find out whether their adult child had survived. The firefighters and cops who went into the crumbling building and never came out. Sure, there were plenty of business stories to be told. But the details of human impact are what you remember forever.

Stacie Sherman is a managing editor at BINJE and teaches business journalism at the College of New Jersey

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Categories: 9/11, Jandoli Institute, Media