Cruising on Autopilot: How the Media Covered 9/11

Covering a national disaster is a bit like swallowing a live oyster. If you think about it too much, it probably won’t get done. That was the situation facing television crews and executives on 9/11, and that was the way they approached the task. Executive after executive and reporter after reporter all sang the same refrain: “We didn’t plan our coverage. We reacted to the situation. We didn’t have time to think about it. We survived on our instincts, our training and our experience. We did it by rote.”