CBS Reporter Escapes Fireball
CBS News Correspondent Carol Marin narrowly survived a fireball explosion as one of the Trade Center towers collapsed. She was at the scene midmorning looking for a CBS News crew on her cell phone. Suddenly, the phone went dead and a fireball erupted in the wake of huge explosion. A New York City firefighter grabbed her and pushed her against a building. "I could feel his heartbeat," she recalled later. She was then passed off to policeman and the pair made their way through black smoke that covered lower Manhattan like nightfall.
Finally, she reached a paramedic truck was given oxygen and taken away from the scene. She wasn't hurt seriously, but later recounted to a colleague, "it was the closest I've ever come to death." She later discussed her experience on the air with CBS anchor Dan Rather.
ABC's Compton Was Pool Reporter
ABC's Ann Compton became the official TV pool reporter on Air Force One with President Bush, who was in Florida set to give a talk on education at a school.
An entire press contingency was with him when word arrived at that event of the terrorist attack. That corp was whittled down to Compton, one cameraperson and a radio reporter. They flew with Bush who set off for Washington and then was rerouted in mid-air to an Air Force base in Louisiana. From there, Bush flew to Nebraska to another Air Force base with the press pool in tow.
Bush addressed the nation for a third time in prime time on Tuesday night.
Attack Shuts Down Hollywood
The terrorist attacks had a widespread effect, including the halting of almost all Hollywood production.
All of the major TV and film studios and networks told employees to stay home and a number of major events including The Latin Grammys and The Emmy Awards were postponed. With the fall TV season set to begin next week, nearly every primetime show on network television was scheduled to be in production Tuesday in and around Los Angeles. With three of the four downed airplanes headed to Los Angeles, many studio and network executives spent the day accounting for their employees.
Network executives were huddling Tuesday afternoon, deciding whether to delay the start of the 2001-2002 season. "It's too early to tell right now, we'll see as the week progresses," said an ABC spokesman. But one network executive said, "It looks like we might actually hold off a week, do you think the American public is going to be ready for a bunch of new sitcoms and dramas?"
The Academy of Television Arts & Sciences and The National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences quickly postponed The 53rd Annual Primetime Emmy Awards and The 2nd Annual Latin Grammy Awards.
The Emmys were scheduled to take place at Los Angeles' Shrine Auditorium on Sunday and the Latin Grammys Tuesday at Los Angeles' Great Western Forum. Both events were to air on CBS.
"This is one of those national moments when television is at it's finest hour and we at the Academy want to allow our news colleagues to bring us and allow us to share this national tragedy, The Emmy Awards will go on, but at an appropriate time," said TV Academy President Jim Chabin.
Sources say The Emmys may be delayed a week to the following Sunday and that show's comedy bits will likely be taken out. It is unclear when The Latin Grammy's will be rescheduled.
At NBC, employees were told not to come in and The Tonight Show with Jay Leno shut down operations and did not produce a broadcast for Tuesday night. NBC Entertainment President
Jeff Zucker was in a meeting at The Empire State Building at the time, but NBC executives say he is fine.
At Fox, the Fox Plaza Tower high-rise, the building used in the first Die Hard movie, was evacuated and all Fox employees were sent home. Fox's national feed Tuesday night will carry live news coverage from Fox News. Fox Broadcasting executives made a couple scheduling changes in the wake of the disaster. Fox has pulled The X-Files Movie off the
schedule on Friday and also the film Independence Day from Sunday's lineup. Also the debut of reality series Love Cruise: The Maiden Voyage was postponed Tuesday and rescheduled for next Tuesday (Sept. 18) at 9 p.m.
At ABC's Los Angeles headquarters, employees were told to stay at home and schedulers made one programming change, pulling film The Peacemaker off the air Saturday night. UPN executives said they will be taking the CBS national feed from 5 p.m. PT through 11 p.m. PT and that further programming decisions will be made Wednesday.
Sources say UPN may pull film Max Knight Ultra Spy on Friday. At The WB, Tuesday's primetime feed has been suspended and CNN will be carried on all of the Tribune affiliates. The WB has also pulled movie The Craft from Wednesday night's lineup.
Networks Continue Ad-Free Crisis Coverage
The major networks ran continuous commercial-free coverage of the terrorist attack for the second straight day Wednesday. They were planning to preempt Wednesday prime time programming and go with news right through the Thursday morning news shows.
The news sharing agreement that all the networks agreed to on the first day of the disaster expired at midnight Wednesday, although network sources said the spirit of the agreement was still essentially in tact throughout the second day Season Start Delayed
The start of the network TV season appears to be moving back a week.Late Wednesday, NBC announced that it will start rolling out its new fall shows on Sept. 24, a week later than originally scheduled.
Executives at ABC, CBS and Fox are all currently discussing similar scenarios and are expected to follow suit."In light of the recent tragic events in our country, NBC has decided to postpone the premieres of the network's fall primetime programs," an NBC statement said. "However, further developments could alter this plan."
The official start of the season with Nielsen Media Research was set for Sept. 17 and a number of the networks have scheduled a conference call with Nielsen for Thursday.
