Today, the world reflects on the 25th anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks. We join in remembering the victims of the tragic day, as well as commemorating the heroes who, in the face of unimaginable danger, risked their lives to save those in need. After a quarter-century, the iconic phrase “Never Forget” feels especially poignant as we think about the event’s historical significance, as well as its impact on the future.
Preserving the memory and legacy of 9/11 is an important responsibility shared by many cultural heritage institutions including the Vanderbilt Television News Archive (TVNA). The breaking news reports that aired on broadcast and cable television were the primary method of information-sharing during the attacks and the following days of recovery and response. TVNA began a special non-stop recording effort starting at 7:50 a.m. on September 11 that continued for nearly a week.
TVNA saved news coverage from ABC, CBS, NBC, and CNN channels from 9/11 to 9/17, totaling more than 500 hours of television news reporting. However, this historical footage is still not entirely available through our website. Twenty-five years later, the TVNA maintains a collection of video tapes related to 9/11 that are awaiting digitization and description. This guide can help researchers understand what coverage is available and how to access specific sections of the collection.
9/11 Special Report Collection Summary
The TVNA can be generalized as three distinct collections: evening news, Nightline, and specials. Evening news includes the daily serial recordings; Nightline is the late-night ABC news program; and specials are the remaining breaking news and programs covering events like national elections, presidential speeches, and international conflicts. The criteria for preserving specials evolved over the years but always included moments in history that were clearly significant and important.
In 1980, Russ Mason established a recording and cataloging program dedicated to the collection of specials. The operation included multiple TV and video tape recording stations accompanied by a wall of VHS and Sony U-Matic video tapes. Mason and fellow staff kept the tape recorders running day and night, replacing tapes as they filled every six hours. The team then decided if a breaking news event met the collection criteria. If it did, the tape was pulled from the rotation and saved for permanent retention. If nothing was selected, the tape was recorded over as needed.
This television monitoring system was already recording on September 11, 2001, as the TVNA staff opened the office that day. For the first three days, TVNA recorded broadcast television on both the higher quality Sony U-Matic recorders as well as the lower quality VHS systems. By September 14, they stopped the double recordings and only maintained the VHS recording operation. The VHS recordings stopped by September 17 for ABC, CBS, and NBC as the stations resumed regular programming. TVNA continued hour-by-hour recordings for CNN until September 18.
What is Available Online?
As of the publication of this article, there are 62 hours of recordings for the day of September 11, and 105 hours between September 12-15 related to the rescue efforts at Ground Zero and the national response to the attacks. These totals are distributed between ABC, CBS, NBC and CNN and are stored as one-hour specials. The Browse by Date list view is the easiest way to find a specific hour of coverage.
Many of the hourly specials include a timed summary of the main reports, speeches, or topics covered within the hour. TVNA also has speech-to-text generated transcripts of most of these records; however, they are not yet searchable online.
| Currently available coverage (hours) by news network | |||||
| Network | 9/11 | 9/12 | 9/13 | 9/14 | 9/15 |
| ABC | 16 | 2 | 0 | 4 | 0 |
| CBS | 17 | 21 | 7 | 0 | 0 |
| NBC | 12 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| CNN | 17 | 24 | 24 | 18 | 5 |
| Total | 62 | 47 | 31 | 22 | 5 |
What is in the backlog?
The TVNA has occasionally conducted special recording projects even when it lacks the capacity to immediately process and provide access to the content. Other examples of special recording projects that still require archival processing include news coverage of the 1990 Gulf War, the 2003 Iraq War invasion, and the 2016 presidential election cycle. The TVNA holds approximately 400 hours of television news recordings from all four networks between September 12-18, 2001, on VHS video tapes. These tapes are labeled by date and network and typically hold 6 hours of video each.
There is no current plan to digitize the tape collection; however, the TVNA is open to proposals and collaborative efforts to fundraise and prepare a digitization plan. If you would like more information or need assistance researching the September 11th collection at the TV News Archive, please contact us.