Twenty Years, Ten Stories
A meditation on September 11, 2001 — twenty years on.
When I got home from school on 9/11/2001, my parents forbade me from watching TV. I could hear the news through the doorway, but I couldn’t see what was undoubtedly on the screen: the planes, the fire, the jumpers, the smoke that was pouring uptown toward our home, just two miles away. I feigned frustration, but I didn’t actually want to see the images. I was scared of them, and I was glad someone told me not to look. For 20 years, I’ve mostly continued to turn away. This year, I finally looked. Or, more accurately, I listened.
Covid made the difference. In the first few months of the pandemic, it seemed like every podcast was turning its attention to this new trauma we were experiencing together. Listening to the many ways audio creators approached the pandemic helped me to process this new reality.
Podcasts about 9/11 had the same effect. Each show looks back on that day through its own particular lens — the legacy of Black firefighters, the attacks’ impact on immigration, a sonic collage — and each gave me a new perspective on that awful day. It’s easy for me to focus on my own 9/11 story, and hearing just one or two other experiences doesn’t shake that urge. But hearing a dozen versions of one event? That has a real impact.
— Intro by Galen Beebe, playlist by Galen Beebe and Ashley Lusk
Manhattan rarely seems like an island, but on 9/11, when the bridges, tunnels, and subways shut down, it felt very much like an island indeed. HISTORY This Week moves off the island and onto the water to recount one captain’s story of ferrying victims across the Hudson River. Among all the tales of firefighters, ambulance drivers, and other first responders, I’d never heard of the heroes who arrived by sea.
Long Shadow, which was recommended in our last issue, is an eight-part series hosted by journalist Garrett Graff, author of the book The Only Plane in the Sky: An Oral History of 9/11. This show investigates the lingering mysteries around the attacks, like was there a fifth plane? Where was Flight 93 aimed? And could the attacks have been stopped?
The simple truth is that there was an after, and it required us to wake up, brush our teeth, go to work, and try to imagine how we could ever live in this new world. Whether subtle or profound, 9/11 would put us each on a new trajectory. 9/12 asks us to find some distance from the events of that day, even just 24 hours, to understand how they shaped everything that followed.
On United States of Anxiety, host Kai Wright talks with journalist Aymann Ismail, who was 11-years-old living in northern New Jersey on the morning of the attacks. Ismail talks about what it was like to be a Muslim adolescent in the wake of 9/11 and how the attacks and the aftermath shaped his identity. The episode also features listener stories and an interview with the creators of the play Come From Away.
Witness History gives us a five-part series on 9/11, from the forewarnings to the U.S.’s attack on Afghanistan, and the backlash against American Muslims. I was particularly struck by “With the President on 9/11,” an episode in which the then-White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card shares his account of breaking the news to then-President George W. Bush watching the president react to the worst terrorist attack on U.S. soil in the country’s history.
People often compare 9/11 to Pearl Harbor, but when it comes to reporting, I think of it as my generation’s Hindenburg disaster — an event that reporters responded to in shock and in the moment. Post Reports talks with Washington Post reporters, editors, and an intern about their experiences on a day that “blurred the line between their personal life and their professional life.” Through this episode, we get a look at the moment that the news industry changed forever.
If you are ready to sit in all the feelings, look no further than “The Lasting Toll of 9/11,” a brief 14-minute collaboration between NPR’s Consider This and StoryCorps (you can listen in either feed). After all, when have you ever listened to an episode of StoryCorps and not had it end in big, cathartic tears?
I wrote about Awful Grace in last year’s newsletter, but it remains the most impactful 9/11 piece I’ve heard. It starts with 13 minutes of scrolling through radio (or TV?) channels, and then the big moment comes — the listener, and the speakers, realize that the first plane has just hit the tower. This non-narrated piece runs over an hour long. I highly recommend listening, and I highly recommend taking all the time and space you need to do so.
How’s Your Day? brings us the most peaceful story from 9/11. Upon hearing the news, a group of whale researchers decided that the best way to fight terrorism in their own lives was to get up and go to work as planned. That day turned out to be a major one for their study subjects because as planes were grounded and ships stilled across the U.S. and Canada, the right whales got a reprieve from the constant human-made noise that pollutes their environment. This story reminds me that even in the most catastrophic moments, there is always someplace quiet.
This Is Love managed to tell a story of someone escaping the towers that wasn’t horrifying to listen to. It’s a harrowing account, of course, but the music is quiet and the speaker is as calm as he had to be on that day, as he made his way down from his office in the North Tower. If he got too upset, he would upset his guide dog, and that would jeopardize them both. This episode was just re-aired on Criminal.
The Bello Collective is a publication + newsletter about podcasts and the audio industry. Our goal is to bring together writers, journalists, and other voices who share a passion for the world of audio storytelling.
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