Throwback Thursday: What American News Sounded Like Hours Before 9/11

Shane Hewitt and The Nightshift · Sep 11, 2026 · 8m

This Throwback Thursday plays the actual ABC broadcast from just hours before the towers were hit, followed by CNN's coverage a day later, to hear exactly how fast everything changed. The contrast between those two clips says more than any recap could.

There is one specific word choice worth noticing in the early coverage, before anyone knew this was intentional. That single shift in language marks the moment the story became something else entirely.

Gas cost sixty five to seventy five cents a litre in 2001. The list of what dominated the news also flipped almost overnight, from tax cuts and…