Broadcast News A CNN producer's behind-the-scenes look at life in a New York City newsroom. BETH GOODMAN Special to the Jewish News S W 11/16 2001 82 ept. 11 was like any other day. At 8 a.m., I took the' teeming subway from the Fifth Avenue and 60th Street stop to Penn Station on 34th Street and 6th Avenue. It was Tuesday, Election Day in the Big Apple. I won- dered how the mayoral race would change the lives of New Yorkers. Rudy Giuliani, elected in 1994, the first Republican mayor in a generation, had transformed the crime-ridden city into a comparative wonder- land. New York City was safer than Boise, Idaho. But there were many who hated Rudy. They were glad to see him go. Too law and order, too by the book, too eager to assert control. Within 20 minutes, I arrived at New York City's CNN offices, where I took the elevator up to the 21st floor, picked up the mail, grabbed a cup of coffee and began reading the morning papers. At around 8:50 a.m., I walked past the news desk, glancing quickly at the 18 monitors located on the wall of the CNN newsroom — until I focused on one monitor. Smoke coming from the North Tower of the World Trade Center! Was this an accident, the work of a terrorist, a fire? Walking back to my desk in the newsroom, not quite able to register in my head what I was witness- ing, I called my husband. "A plane crashed into the side of the World Trade Center. I've got to go. I'll call you later." After a few minutes, I walked over to a different area of the bureau, where several producers were gathered around a television "setnear our Greenfield At Large offices. Barely speaking, we continued to watch the televi- sion set together in silence, mesmerized and morti- fied. "What's going on?" was our collective thought. At about 9 a.m., as I stood transfixed by the unfolding events, I saw something out of the corner of my eye on one of those monitors. Something that at that moment I was simply unable to comprehend: the unmistakable image of yet another passenger jet hurtling into the side of the other World Trade Center tower. Fighting through the shock, I checked in with the newscast, from my desk in the heart of a now frantic newsroom. "We need to get Aaron on the air now!" he yelled as he sprinted up to the control room on the 22nd floor. Edith Chapin, the CNN deputy bureau chief, manned the phones near the news desk, shouting for a full accounting of the CNN producers in the field near the World Trade . Center. "Shannon, Rose, Phil!" She wanted to hear their voices. She needed to know they were still alive. At about 9:45 a.m., I heard my brother-in-law's familiar voice emanating from the TV. Chris Plante, CNN's national security producer, was reporting to Aaron Brown from just outside the Pentagon. "The building is currently being evacuated. The plume of smoke is enormous. It is billowing into the sky, hundreds of yards." American Airlines Flight 77, filled with innocent civilians and steered by five kamikaze hijackers, had just burrowed into the Pentagon. America Under Attack In the most devastating terrorist onslaughts ever waged against the United States, hijackers crashed two airliners into the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, toppling its twin 110-story towers. executive producer of our show to verify that she'd already spoken to Jeff Greenfield, who watched the unfolding of events from his home on the Upper West Side. She had. Jeff would be in shortly. Working in the news business for the past eight years, I have, however reluctantly, become accus- tomed to covering what some might label the sensa- tional side of the news. Big, brassy stories that titil- late viewers, but have very little, if any, impact on their lives or the lives of those around them: the O.J. Simpson Bronco chase, the Monica Lewinsky scan- dal, the impeachment of President Clinton for acts unbecoming a gentleman — or a president, Jon Benet Ramsey, Gary Condit. But suddenly, traumatically, I was witness to the greatest slaughter of American citizens since the Civil War battle of Antietam, and a sudden, jarring shift in the fault lines of 21st-century history. We'd passed from the exuberance of the 1990s to an incomprehensible, darker place. I remember watching David Bohrman, the execu- tive producer in charge of the Aaron Brown evening Suddenly, the newsroom exploded with shrieks and groans as the Sourh Tower of the World Trade Center collapsed, rolling downward from the sky into a heap of smoking, flaming steel. There were wild rumors of other planes — unseen, uncounted — headed to the Capitol, the White House, God knows where else. As the reports of horrors yet unseen bounced around the newsroom, I looked up yet again at that monstrous wall of monitors to see the second World Trade Center tower tumble down, imploding in on itself and all those inside. By 11 a.m., CNN had moved its studio to the roof of our building, framed by the horror unfolding below, and Jeff Greenfield had arrived., Maintaining a sense of mature calm, he assured me that as soon as someone needed him to report, he'd be ready: Executive producers, flushed with adrenaline and aggression, rushed to the control room to initiate weeks of wall-to-wall coverage. I went up to the roof where Aaron Brown was sta- tioned. There, three laptop computers were set up for staff to write scripts, monitor wire stories and conduct research on an as-needed basis. The sun was so bright that day, I could hardly see. I remember thinking about the people in the Twin Towers and in the Pentagon, thinking to myself that countless thousands had died. Here I stood safe on the roof of the CNN news bureau on an incongruously gorgeous, sunny September day draped in a pall of unspeakable hor- ror and sadness. Behind me, enormous billows of smoke spiraled up and up, smearing the blue sky. Later on in the day, Jeff Greenfield stood on the roof of our building, where cameras would be positioned for the next several weeks. I heard him remark to a colleague, "This is the nightmare."— In the days and weeks ahead, I reached for corn- fort by thinking about my father, who passed away in 1999, and how he would respond to our present circumstances. "Watch yourself," he would say. I do.