There are three things I remember most about covering the events of September 11, 2001: a rude awakening, the deafening quiet, and getting into a fight.

I was five years into my journalism career in September of 2001, just a few weeks from my 27th birthday, and working at the 24-hour local news station in Rochester, NY. I produced the weeknight newscasts.

As often happens in newsrooms, our nightside crew became a tight-knit unit. We genuinely liked each other and fell into a predictable routine of going to work, going out after work, going home, getting some sleep, and going back to work.

I don’t remember where we went after work on September 10th, 2001, but I do remember getting home late and waking up to the phone ringing in the morning, a landline I actually had to get out of bed to answer.

“Turn on the t.v.,” came the urgent voice of one of my pals, no hello. Slightly disoriented, I didn’t ask a lot of questions. I turned to our station, thinking perhaps something had gone comically awry with the morning news, something I had to see.

“What are you doing?” My friend asked.

“I turned on the morning show,” I said.

“TURN ON A REAL STATION!” He hollered. I giggled, a last moment of blissful ignorance.

Landing on the TODAY show, I saw a plane crashed into the World Trade Center.

“Figured I’d let you know before work,” my friend said, “crazy.”

We know now that we didn’t know the half of it when we ended that call.

My body remembers the tension of driving to the station followed by the familiar relief the busyness of breaking news provides. The buzz of the newsroom helped drown out the deafening quiet everywhere else, a small comfort. Most of the finer details are a blur, but a shouting match in the studio still resonates.

It began when my friend, mentor, and main anchor challenged me, sternly questioning why we weren’t showing more footage of the planes hitting the towers and the buildings collapsing in clouds of dark gray smoke. He argued it was our responsibility to show what happened and to use the most compelling video to do it. I argued it was some 12 hours after the attacks, and perhaps it was time to start shifting the coverage in a new direction. I questioned the judgement of replaying the video over and over again, particularly now that we knew there were local people whose loved ones were missing. Shouldn’t we consider our responsibility in that regard?

I’m making it sound like a really thoughtful conversation, but the truth is: we were yelling at each other during a minute and a half break. I remember saying something about how I doubted anyone could ever forget those images no matter how hard they tried. Exhausted and still clinging to my high horse, I tried not to cry in the control room, all while worrying I was making all the wrong decisions: the video, the yelling, all of it. 

Like most newsroom skirmishes, the argument cooled as quickly as it flared. The show went on and then, a layer of skin thicker, we went out, we went home, we went to sleep, and we did it all again on September 12th.

Kate Welshofer is a lecturer in the Jandoli School of Communication at St. Bonaventure University.

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