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Steve Doocy and Brian Kilmeade are preparing for a reunion of sorts that neither is eager to remember.
On September 11, 2001, both Fox News Channel personalities were working on air as news organizations throughout the New York area were trying to cover devastating attacks by terrorists on the two massive skyscrapers at the World Trade Center.
“It has always been a very sober and somber day on ‘Fox & Friends,’” Doocy says of the anniversary of 9/11. “We were there from the beginning. It’s just one of those days where you sit up a little straighter because of the gravity of the day.”
For Kilmeade, the day marked a turning point in his career at Fox News, because he was dispatched to get to downtown Manhattan and capture what was happening. “Keep in mind I was hired for sports. I was always doing sports on the morning show,” he recalls. But after a surreal trip downtown with crew members, he says, “they no longer thought of me as a sports guy after that. I certainly didn’t think of myself as that.”
Next week, “Fox & Friends” will spend time remembering the tragedy around the 25th anniversary of its occurrence. Doocy will host the morning program’s “Breakfast with Friends” series live from O’Hara’s Pub in downtown Manhattan just two blocks from Ground Zero. Doocy will on Tuesday travel to Washington, D.C. and speak with Tunnels to Towers Foundation chairman and CEO Frank Siller. On Thursday, Doocy will broadcast live from Shanksville, Pennsylvania, the crash site of United Airlines Flight 93. And on Friday, , September 11th, Fox News Channel’s special coverage will commence with “Fox & Friends co-hosts Kilmeade, Ainsley Earhardt and Lawrence Jones broadcasting live from the Hyatt House in Jersey City, overlooking the New York City skyline, while Doocy will contribute live from Ground Zero.
Other programs will also nod to the anniversary. “America’s Newsroom” will carry the live reading of the victims’ names from the National September 11 Memorial & Museum. Martha MacCallum, host of “The Story,” will feature an interview with Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the New York Police Department co-chief chaplain.
Fox News’ efforts will join those of ABC News, NBC News, CBS News, MS NOW and CNN. The 25th anniversary of the attacks has spurred many news organizations to offer a broader array of programming, which in most years is largely tied to comemmoration.
Many journalists had to pivot on 9/11, moving from traditional morning-news programming to rolling crisis coverage. Not many of them remain on active duty.
Kilmeade still has vivid recollections of his time visiting Ground Zero on the actual day planes crashed into the two World Trade Center towers. “People were blown out of their shoes,” he remembers. “You could not see the ground. It felt like you were on the moon.” He remembers handing in tapes of what he and the Fox News crew assigned to him had collected, “and I’ve never seen them since.”
In a sign of how unexpected the attacks were, Doocy was, before chaos erupted, tending to something entirely different for the Fox News morning program. “I was outside I was doing the weather with Mr. Peanut,” he remembers. “Planters Peanuts has that mascot. I’m interviewing Mr. Peanut,” which presented some challenges. After all, says Doocy, “Mr. Peanut doesn’t talk.” When he walked 15 feet back into the studio, people were on alert. There was a report of a plane crashing into one of the World Trade Center towers, but there was not much detail. “Nobody had any images,” recalls Doocy. There was speculation that a helicopter or small plane had gone off course.
From there, both Doocy and Kilmeade remember hours of work and of staying in different hotel rooms in New York after the city closed access. Doocy didn’t see his family for two days.
Fox News Media on September 11 will provide coverage and commemoration throughout the day. Eric Shawn, a Fox News Channel senior correspondent who reported from Ground Zero in 2001, will be on hand to provide coverage. At Fox Business Network, Liz Claman, anchor of “The Claman Countdown,” will speak with Brandon and Kyle Lutnick, the Chairman and Executive Vice Chairman of Cantor Fitzgerald, on September 10th and on September 11, will interview Larry Silverstein, founder and CEO of Silverstein Properties, from the World Trade Center, which he helped rebuild. Streaming outlet Fox Nation will debut two new specials exploring the impact of the 9/11 attacks 25 years later.
Doocy hopes such work will ensure Americans remember the terrible day, no matter the memories and feelings it sparks. With the event a quarter century old, he wonders if “the day has lost its potency for a lot of people, its place in history.” The news business employs many young producers, he notes, “who weren’t alive at the time.” The work being done next week by a broad array of news organizations will try to keep remembrances of the day active.
English (US) ·