It was the first broadcast warning that the world had changed permanently.
When CNN cut live to the shocking image of the North Tower engulfed in flames at 8:49 a.m. on September 11, 2001—just three minutes after the first plane struck—morning anchor Carol Lin delivered the terrifying news.
A quarter-century later, Lin remembers the disbelief inside the newsroom, the events that followed and the profound impact the attacks had on her own life.
When the first plane hit, Lin was away from the main anchor desk making conversation with author Amy Tan, who was preparing to discuss a new animated series set to air on PBS.
‘It was near the end of our morning program, as we were approaching 9 o’clock, and we were in a commercial break. I was warming up the guests,’ Lin recalls.
‘Suddenly, one of the CNN executives ran past me toward the control room. I asked, “What’s going on?” because nobody runs in the CNN newsroom. But this was different. She said, “There’s a report of a plane into the World Trade Center…”‘
‘My first thought was that it was a small plane. That’s where my mind went because imagining anything else seemed impossible. Then the executive producer spoke to me through my earpiece and said, “Get back to the anchor set. We’re going into rolling coverage.”‘
Lin returned to the desk without a script and glanced at the preview monitor built into it.
‘It showed the full-screen image we were about to put on after the commercial break—a shot of the North Tower with a huge hole in it and flames pouring out,’ she says.
Lin Recalls the Shock Inside the Newsroom
As CNN went live, Lin told viewers: ‘This just in. You are looking at, obviously, a very disturbing live picture. That is the World Trade Center, and we have unconfirmed reports this morning that a plane has crashed into one of the towers of the World Trade Center.’
The footage would later appear in numerous Hollywood films and documentaries about the terrorist attacks.
Lin says the newsroom was stunned, with no immediate way to determine whether the crash had been an accident or an intentional act.
She also understood that relatives would be watching, desperately trying to learn whether someone they loved was inside the building.
‘What you saw, I saw. What you knew, I knew,’ she says. ‘We knew nothing. While I was speaking, I was also looking at my computer and searching for information: Which train lines served the World Trade Center? How many people worked in the North Tower? What buildings surrounded it? I wanted to provide some context while we waited for eyewitness accounts. At the very least, I could explain the area to viewers.’
CNN was still headquartered in Atlanta, although executives in the Turner Building in New York had a direct view of the World Trade Center.
Sean Murtaugh, CNN’s vice president of finance, called the control room and confirmed on air that the aircraft was not a small plane but a large passenger jet.
Even amid the confusion, Lin concentrated on asking questions, describing what viewers could see and separating confirmed information from speculation.
Cautious Reporting Amid Newsroom Chaos
‘Twenty-five years ago, broadcast journalism followed standards and practices that meant we did not report anything we could not verify,’ she says.
‘The difference was that what we were seeing was completely catastrophic.’
Like newsrooms across the country, CNN’s staff was initially frozen by the enormity of what was unfolding.
‘I have been in newsrooms when wars broke out, and you could hear a pin drop. It was silent,’ Lin says. ‘That day, people were standing, gesturing and shouting. After the second plane hit, especially, we collectively understood that this was terrorism.’
NEXT UP: Salma Hayek, 60, stuns in dress with Sharon Stone, Kerry Washington
As the crisis deepened, a stream of unverified claims began arriving, forcing editors to decide what belonged on air and what had to remain unreported.
Among the rumors were claims that New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani had ordered 10,000 body bags, that a car bomb was outside the State Department and that the White House had already been evacuated.
‘Today, there is more of a mindset that says, “Put it out there and correct it later,”‘ Lin says. ‘That was not the standard then. We chose to hold back information until we had the facts.
‘So even though the newsroom was chaotic, I was extremely careful about what I said on air. I felt enormous pressure to be precise and restrained, and to wait until we could speak with eyewitnesses about what was happening.’
Lin remained on the anchor desk for several weeks before traveling to Quetta, Pakistan, near the Afghan border. The Taliban had refused to issue visas to female journalists.
A Turning Point in Lin’s Life
In Quetta, she saw how easily people crossed the border, challenging Pakistan’s assurances that it would be a reliable US partner in the war on terror. She called those assurances a ‘fallacy.’
‘There was no border,’ she says. ‘If Osama bin Laden was using the southern route, as was believed, he could have crossed it with ease.’
As it did for millions of people, 9/11 became a defining moment in Lin’s life. She recounts that deeply personal journey in her memoir, When News Breaks: A Memoir of Love and War.
At the time, Lin was married to journalist William Robinson Jr., whom she had met while covering the presidential campaign trail in Iowa. The attacks prompted the couple to decide they wanted to have a child.
‘When the attacks happened—and I have heard this from many people reflecting on how 9/11 changed them—we were surrounded by so much death, destruction and despair,’ she says.
‘The images from New York, particularly mothers holding photographs of their children beside the chain-link fences around Ground Zero, made us think deeply about how we wanted to live.
‘Could we create something? Could we bring life into a world surrounded by so much grief? We decided that the time was right.
‘When I became pregnant, after about a year of trying, we were overwhelmed with happiness and gratitude.’
Lin Reflects on 9/11’s Lasting Legacy
Six months into the pregnancy, however, her husband was diagnosed with a cancer that would ultimately prove fatal.
‘That’s when the universe laughs,’ she says. ‘We report so many stories about people at the peak of their careers, their lives or their dreams who suddenly lose everything to an earthquake, a tsunami, a war or cancer. That is where the real story began for me.
‘I had devoted so much energy to building a career and wondering what came next. Then I had a child after 9/11, while the war on terror continued and colored alerts made personal safety feel like something measured each day by a government chart. Eventually, you realize it did not take a terrorist to teach me that life offers no guarantee of tomorrow. I think that is 9/11’s legacy.’
Today, Lin uses Substack to collect and share stories from people describing how 9/11 reshaped their lives.
‘Hearing these stories is extraordinary,’ she says. ‘There are people whose supervisors refused to let them leave, so they quit. There is someone with enormous wealth, a high-powered financial analyst, who suddenly realized there had to be more to life.
‘They are untold stories—small moments of reflection, courage, heroism and tribute.’
The 25th anniversary, she says, offers an opportunity to examine ‘how much has changed, whether anything has changed and how it changed me.’
