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Here’s How TV News Is Covering the 9/11 Remembrances This Morning

By A.J. Katz 

Television news is presenting live coverage of the 19th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks this morning from the National September 11 Memorial & Museum at the World Trade Center in New York.

America lost nearly 3,000 lives on that tragic day in 2001.

All three broadcast networks carried the first moment of silence at 8:46 a.m. ET, when the first of two hijacked planes was flown into the north tower of the World Trade Center.

Many affiliates took their parent network’s special report on the moment of silence, while others stuck with local newscast coverage. An ABC News special report on the moment was anchored by George Stephanopolos. Savannah Guthrie anchored for NBC News and the CTM trio anchored for CBS News.

For the first time, the annual commemoration ceremony at New York’s Ground Zero did not include a live reading of the victims’ names (the reading of the names was recorded).

New York’s local ABC, NBC and CBS stations as well as Spectrum News NY 1 continued to cover the commemoration ceremony and recorded reading of the names throughout the morning.

Joe Biden joined New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and other New York-based political dignitaries at 1 World Trade.

Vice president Mike Pence was also present and greeted Biden.

President Trump delivered remarks at the Flight 93 memorial in Shanksville, Pa., this morning:

 

NBC News correspondent Harry Smith delivered a stirring 9/11-focused segment this morning on Today.

“It was just too much. What we were watching couldn’t be real. Our minds, our souls refused to believe … the enormity of it all. The shock, soon turning to sorrow.”

CBS This Morning’s Tony Dokoupil presented his taped 9/11 segment on CTM, during which he interviews two brothers, both of whom became New York City firefighters in honor of their late father, a New York City firefighter who died on 9/11.

Fox & Friends traditionally delivers the most in-depth coverage of the annual 9/11 events of all the morning shows. The program aired the live memorial events in New York and moments of silence. Throughout the program, Steve Doocy, Ainsley Earhardt and Brian Kilmeade were joined by a series of guests, including former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani (as has become tradition) and CEO of the Stephen Siller Tunnel to Towers Foundation Frank Siller, to share their experiences from 9/11. Siller was joined in lower Manhattan by Fox & Friends Weekend co-host and Pete Hegseth.

Additionally, the network’s live news banner outside of its New York headquarters featured each of the names of all 2,975 victims from that day in the 8 a.m. hour as the memorial services took place.

Chris Wallace provided his thoughts on that fateful day this morning on America’s Newsroom, saying it “feels like an open wound.”

Additionally, FBN’s Charlie Gasparino wrote an op-ed, titled 9/11 and the pandemic: A united and divided society. In it, he reflects on 9/11 and his own connection to what happened that day. He notes that, “It hit home to me because my old man help build the Twin Towers, and when I was a kid, he took me to see the nearly completed version.” He also thinks back on his time working across the street as a reporter at the Wall Street Journal, and how a doctor’s appointment that morning spared him from being at Ground Zero when the planes hit.

Finally, former Today co-host Katie Couric tweeted out footage of her iconic 9/11 coverage with Matt Lauer on the NBC morning show.

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