Taking on New Adventures

I wrote this article in 2008 for CNN.com’s AC360 blog. It’s just a perspective that I had that morning, working in Atlanta at CNN’s headquarters.

We had three Senators on hold and Ted Turner in the control room

Kay Jones

AC360° Editorial Producer

At 8am on Sept. 11, 2001, various people from CNN, including myself, were in our daily morning meeting, discussing how to cover Michael Jordan’s 2nd return from retirement, which looked to be the big story of the day.

At some point in the conversation, the NY bureau’s managing editor broke in on the phone: “Guys, it’s New York here. A plane has just hit one of the World Trade Center towers. You can see it on router 22”. We immediately turned the TV in the conference room, saw the hole in the side of the tower and started running to the newsroom to start our coverage.

I was one of the morning show bookers at the time. I had only been on the job for a few months when the planes hit, and this was really the first major story I would work on in this new job. I ran downstairs and got my colleague, Erin DeLoach, to jump in on calls. We split up various businesses and hotels to try and get information, as well as “beepers”, also known as phone interviews on air.

I was actually on the phone with the front desk of the World Trade Center Marriott when the 2nd plane hit. I remember the panic in the voice of the young lady I was speaking with. I also remember all of the yelling in the CNN newsroom when that happened. I think we knew that this wasn’t a random thing… it was terrorism.

I was asked to head to the control room, and help manage the interviews that came in. At one point, we had three Senators holding on the line, including Sen. John McCain, as well as producer Rose Arce, who was one of the first CNN employees at the WTC site. I had to help the control room producers manage who to talk to next, speak with those who were on hold to let them know what was going on and keep up with who was on one of the eleven lines coming into the control room.

These were the days before blackberries, so the only info I could get was through whatever was being said in that small room. The computers were all being used, and after about an hour, I managed to get onto email to sift through who the booking staff was calling, and who had agreed to be interviewed and what time. This was the only way to manage and confirm who was on the phone lines. We didn’t want to put on someone who claimed to be an eyewitness, but was sitting in Pittsburgh watching it on TV.

We also had to confirm or deny the rumors we were hearing, including whether more planes were hijacked as well as the rumors of planes hitting the Washington Mall as well as heading towards Camp David. Obviously, not all of those were correct, but we had to check out every one.

To this day, 9/11/01 is all is a bit of a blur. But I do recall that at one point, every executive with CNN, including Ted Turner, was standing in the control room not only monitoring what we were doing, but helping out with whatever they could do. In this highly intense story, we had to make sure the information we put on the air was accurate and the people in the control room did all they could to make sure that happened.

I think I was in the control room for about 5 hours when someone came in to relieve me. It was only then that I managed to comprehend the magnitude of what had happened, and how our lives as Americans would never be the same again. I had gotten to the office at 5am that day, only to leave at 7pm and have to return at 3am the next day. It was highly intense, and we would continue to work long days for a couple of months trying to tell as much of the story as we could.