Media documentation of the September 11 attacks

Potentially due to the sudden and catastrophic nature of the attacks, there was no effort by city, state, or federal governments to document the disaster.

[2] The Mayor of New York City at the time, Rudy Giuliani, issued an executive order shortly after the end of the attack, banning amateur photographs of the ruins as it was deemed a "crime scene" and not a tourist attraction.

Guenther recounted that she ran to the Brooklyn Heights Promenade shortly after the first tower was hit; this is when she noticed the second plane coming in over the Statue of Liberty.

Plunkett had just exited the subway and was attempting to get past police barriers when the towers collapsed, and she began to run before turning around and capturing those evacuating the area.

Photographer Richard Drew with The Associated Press recounted that he had arrived at a fashion show in Bryant Park at around 7:30 that morning, before sitting near a CNN camera set up at around 8:30.

These rolls of film and equipment, where possible, were cleaned and processed; many of the photos produced showcase the photographers' final work, notably with the recovered cameras of Bill Biggart.

[9] Other exhibitions of the images were brought together in the form of archives, such as one spearheaded by photographer Joel Meyerowitz under the direction of the Museum of the City of New York to focus on the rescue and recovery work at Ground Zero.

[9] At the beginning of the attacks, there were only three known videographers who captured the impact of the first plane when it hit the North Tower in New York City: French filmmaker Jules Naudet, who was recording for a documentary about the New York Fire Department;[14] German artist Wolfgang Staehle, who was livestreaming the Manhattan skyline at the time; and Czech tourist Pavel Hlava, who unintentionally captured the impact while making a video postcard to send home to his family.

[16] The attacks were also captured by local law enforcement, such as Officer Glen Pettit, who was a video cameraman for the New York Police Department.

[6] Jules and Gédéon Naudet are the French filmmakers who were at the scene of the attack as they were filming a documentary on members of the Engine 7, Ladder 1 firehouse in Lower Manhattan and had followed the firefighters on a routine call following a suspected gas leak in downtown New York.

This allowed them to capture the real-time reactions of ordinary citizens, first responders, and political leaders as the events were unfolding, causing much of the verbal content aired to the public to be spontaneous and emotionally charged.

[5] Channels such as WNYW, on its Good Day New York program, aired footage almost immediately, and CNN had a live feed of the Twin Towers at 8:49 AM, almost three minutes after the first plane had hit.

Streams of callers phoned in to speculate about the event in real-time and give their impassioned, angered reactions, including eyewitness testimonials close to the New York attacks.

[24][25][26] Other radio presenters have recounted the whiplash that occurred to those in the business having to move from their daily program to documenting, reporting and fielding phone calls about the disaster in real time.

A host located in Jersey City with a direct view of the World Trade Center from their office, said that they were discussing if certain actions were cheating on air, when calls about a potential helicopter crash into the towers began.

A prior host of a station in Los Angeles who was live that day said that she kept having to stop and calm herself while fielding the calls, and remembered no music being played.

[27] Radio stations in New York City such as WINS 1010 and WCBS 880 kept information local broadcasting the latest in tunnel, subway, train and other transportation closures to allow people to evacuate, as well as who to call in order to report someone missing or where to donate.

[34] One survivor, who had been eating in the cafeteria on the 43rd floor of the North Tower, reported she received a bulletin on her pager announcing that a plane had hit the World Trade Center.

Verizon's densest knot of cables and switches in the world were located near the trade center, with the attack destroying 300,000 voice access lines, and 4.5 million data circuits with 10 cellular towers made inactive.

[42] Media outlets based in New York City and Manhattan published photographs of people lining up on the streets to wait to use a pay-phone to communicate with friends and family members, as the cell-phone network was crippled.

[43] After the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, radio repeaters for New York City Fire Department communication were installed in the tower complex.

[44] Emergency relief efforts in both Lower Manhattan and at the Pentagon were augmented by volunteer amateur radio operators in the weeks after the attacks.