Latest / Curtis Sliwa & Larry Mendte In The Morning / Joe Bartlett, former WOR news director Interview

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Joe Bartlett, former WOR news director Interview · Curtis Sliwa & Larry Mendte In The Morning

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: And on that day, a lot of the media that
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: responded to the first plane hitting a World Trade Center
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: tower got to see the second plane in real time
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: and report on it live. And one of those people
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: is the legendary former WOR news director, Joe Bartlett. And
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: in the old WOR studios, you could see the towers
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: from the windows and Joe looked out his window and
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: reported live.
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: Oh my God, Ed, another plane just hit the World
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: Trade Center.
• 0:35
  Speaker 3: Another plane.
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: It was a medium-sized plane.
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: Unbelievable.
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: It looked like, oh my God, this is a deliberate act, Ed.
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: This plane flew directly into the second World Trade Center.
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: A huge flame and conflagration just broke out.
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: And we have Joe Bartlett on the phone live, former
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: WOR news director. Joe, that was an incredible job that day.
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: And just that what we played for you was an
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: incredible combination of journalistic skills and human emotion, exactly what
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: that moment called for. Can you tell us, walk us
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: through that moment?
• 1:18
  Speaker 3: You know, it was good morning, Larry and Curtis. It
• 1:22
  Speaker 3: was just an ordinary day. And then we got the
• 1:25
  Speaker 3: call that there was a plane had hit the first
• 1:27
  Speaker 3: tower and we're trying to figure out what happened. And
• 1:31
  Speaker 3: as you said, I could look directly south to the
• 1:33
  Speaker 3: World Trade Center. And I'm watching that as I see
• 1:35
  Speaker 3: this other plane come down the Hudson. Really, it was
• 1:39
  Speaker 3: surreal because it was at a low level and I'm
• 1:42
  Speaker 3: trying to figure out what's going on with the tower.
• 1:44
  Speaker 3: And I see this small, not small, but a large plane.
• 1:48
  Speaker 3: going directly toward the scene. And I'm thinking to myself
• 1:51
  Speaker 3: in the back of my mind, why is he there?
• 1:53
  Speaker 3: And then bang, it hit the building. And right away,
• 1:58
  Speaker 3: you knew something awful had occurred. In fact, I remember
• 2:02
  Speaker 3: as I was describing this, I said something sinister has
• 2:05
  Speaker 3: just happened. And I think what struck me about all
• 2:10
  Speaker 3: of this is the enormity of what was happening. But
• 2:16
  Speaker 3: beyond that, Just the rapid succession of unbelievable events. Just
• 2:23
  Speaker 3: think about it. 846, the first plane hits the North Tower. 903,
• 2:29
  Speaker 3: the second plane hits the South Tower. Then a plane
• 2:33
  Speaker 3: hits the Pentagon. And it's unbelievable. All these things are
• 2:38
  Speaker 3: happening every 10 minutes or so. Then the tower collapsed.
• 2:44
  Speaker 3: The South Tower collapsed. Unbelievable. And I'm thinking to myself,
• 2:48
  Speaker 3: how many people were in that tower? How many people
• 2:50
  Speaker 3: have just died? And it was hard to get a
• 2:54
  Speaker 3: grasp on what was happening. And obviously, you're just shocked.
• 2:59
  Speaker 3: You're sad. You're scared. And all those emotions are going
• 3:04
  Speaker 3: through your mind. And I just keep talking about what's happening,
• 3:10
  Speaker 3: describe the events, and We'll figure out the rest later.
• 3:13
  Speaker 3: That's my thought.
• 3:15
  Speaker 4: And Joe, later on, when the towers have completely gone down,
• 3:19
  Speaker 4: there's no TV coverage. Everyone is dependent on radio. People
• 3:24
  Speaker 4: down in the lower Manhattan area had no cell phone contact.
• 3:29
  Speaker 4: So as the go-to news guy, how did you handle
• 3:34
  Speaker 4: trying to sort of sort through the rumors, the innuendos?
• 3:39
  Speaker 4: There was no internet at the time. How did you
• 3:41
  Speaker 4: handle that to make sure you were putting out the
• 3:44
  Speaker 4: right information as opposed to maybe even stoking more fear
• 3:50
  Speaker 4: and more concerns that people had who were in shock?
• 3:54
  Speaker 3: Well, we relied mainly on callers who would call us
• 3:59
  Speaker 3: and tell us firsthand what they have seen. I remember
• 4:02
  Speaker 3: we had one of our reporters down there, Mara Rubin.
• 4:05
  Speaker 3: And we were extremely concerned when the towers fell because
• 4:08
  Speaker 3: we thought she was right. She had been reporting from
• 4:11
  Speaker 3: the scene. So we thought that she was right there. Fortunately,
• 4:14
  Speaker 3: she was with Mayor Giuliani and was safe. But I
• 4:19
  Speaker 3: don't know, Curtis, you just keep going. You just keep
• 4:23
  Speaker 3: going and you try to be as accurate as possible.
• 4:27
  Speaker 3: There were probably some moments where we were maybe a
• 4:31
  Speaker 3: little inaccurate, but... You just do the best you can.
• 4:36
  Speaker 3: And you're thrown into this situation. And as your natural
• 4:41
  Speaker 3: instincts as a reporter come out, just describe the scene
• 4:45
  Speaker 3: and insert a little bit of your personal opinion from
• 4:47
  Speaker 3: time to time and figure it out later. But it
• 4:52
  Speaker 3: was hour after hour after hour. The uncertainty, you didn't
• 4:57
  Speaker 3: know what was going on. That's another factor that's in
• 5:00
  Speaker 3: your head. But again, you just plod forward with your job.
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: You talked about Mara. I want to play something you
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: said about Mara on that day.
• 5:09
  Speaker 3: Oh my gosh, this is terrible.
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: And as we heard earlier from Mara Rubin, I certainly
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: hope she's all right.
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you were concerned about her. I know a lot
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: of news organizations that were concerned about their people at
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: the scene.
• 5:26
  Speaker 3: Oh, absolutely. I mean, we didn't think that the tower
• 5:30
  Speaker 3: was going to collapse. Okay, it got hit by a plane.
• 5:32
  Speaker 3: That's terrible. But to collapse, and you're watching it. I
• 5:38
  Speaker 3: remember watching the scene, and I'm looking, and then all
• 5:40
  Speaker 3: of a sudden, like the tower disappeared. It's like you
• 5:45
  Speaker 3: can't even think of that. You could never really think
• 5:50
  Speaker 3: of that kind of scenario because I thought those buildings
• 5:53
  Speaker 3: were pretty sturdy.
• 5:54
  Speaker 4: Well, I think it's very important that people realize the
• 5:58
  Speaker 4: importance that radio played because no other forms of communication
• 6:04
  Speaker 4: and explanation were taking place. Now, in radio, we have
• 6:08
  Speaker 4: an emergency broadcast system. So if there is a national emergency,
• 6:12
  Speaker 4: the president could be heard from wherever he happened to
• 6:15
  Speaker 4: be at that moment. We didn't know where the president was.
• 6:18
  Speaker 4: We didn't know where the vice president was. It wasn't
• 6:20
  Speaker 4: until later on the day we heard from the mayor, Rudy,
• 6:23
  Speaker 4: to give us updates that So people had to. Many
• 6:27
  Speaker 4: people hadn't listened to radio in years. Now we're forced
• 6:31
  Speaker 4: to rediscover radio because it was their only way to
• 6:34
  Speaker 4: know what was going on.
• 6:37
  Speaker 3: The other thing about that moment, Curtis, is we really
• 6:40
  Speaker 3: didn't know what was going on. We were under attack.
• 6:43
  Speaker 3: And for Americans, it's crazy. It's never a thought. We
• 6:49
  Speaker 3: thought we were very well protected. We have two oceans
• 6:52
  Speaker 3: protecting us. We have the massive military of the United
• 6:55
  Speaker 3: States of America. So we don't get attacked. And it
• 7:01
  Speaker 3: was hard to figure out what was happening. Although, I
• 7:05
  Speaker 3: do remember in our discussion that we did kind of
• 7:08
  Speaker 3: quickly surmise that it may have been Osama bin Laden
• 7:13
  Speaker 3: because he had been behind the bombing of the U.S.S.
• 7:16
  Speaker 3: coal in Yemen and claim responsibility for that. So we
• 7:22
  Speaker 3: thought it could be Osama bin Laden. Keep in mind, too,
• 7:25
  Speaker 3: we did have a previous attack on the World Trade
• 7:28
  Speaker 3: Center in 1993.
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: I want to play something for you because you mentioned
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: a moment ago, I think I even said on the air,
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: this is sinister. We have a clip of that and
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: then I have a question afterwards. There's no doubt about this.
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: If you have two eyes, you know what happened here.
• 7:43
  Speaker 3: This is absolutely sinister.
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: And you were correct, and you were correct about Osama
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: bin Laden. You did a wonderful job. As a matter
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: of fact, I thought journalism that day and the days
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: after was amazing. I wish we could get back to that,
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: but it's moments like this where we all rise to
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: our best, and you certainly did. After that, how long
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: were you on this story, and were you able to
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: go home?
• 8:11
  Speaker 3: You know, I don't even remember. I probably did go
• 8:14
  Speaker 3: home because I didn't live that far away. But I
• 8:16
  Speaker 3: was on the air almost through the afternoon, I think.
• 8:20
  Speaker 3: And then, you know, right back the next day. And
• 8:23
  Speaker 3: then I think it was like maybe two days later
• 8:25
  Speaker 3: that I went down to Lower Manhattan, as far as
• 8:28
  Speaker 3: they would let you go. I think it was a
• 8:30
  Speaker 3: little bit south of Canal Street. But I think Curtis
• 8:33
  Speaker 3: mentioned it earlier. When you went down there, you smelled death.
• 8:36
  Speaker 3: I mean, he said it smelled like a crematorium. There
• 8:40
  Speaker 3: was an awful, awful smell in the air. And it
• 8:45
  Speaker 3: was pungent. You really knew it. And it was the
• 8:48
  Speaker 3: smell of death. And it was just a horrific scene
• 8:51
  Speaker 3: down there.
• 8:53
  Speaker 4: And I think the other thing to you, Joe, and
• 8:56
  Speaker 4: so many others who are down there reporting to all
• 8:59
  Speaker 4: of us, you didn't stoke the fear, fright, and hysteria
• 9:03
  Speaker 4: that nowadays, because there's so many forms of communication. would
• 9:08
  Speaker 4: have existed. Conspiracies, everything would have surfaced. You guys and
• 9:13
  Speaker 4: gals were cool, calm, and collected in the most perilous
• 9:19
  Speaker 4: of times that we would ever experience in our lifetime.
• 9:23
  Speaker 3: Yeah, because you really didn't know. This was a very
• 9:26
  Speaker 3: historic moment. I thought the irony, too, was 9-11, 9-1-1.
• 9:30
  Speaker 3: It was hard to know what to make of it.
• 9:38
  Speaker 3: It was a historic, you knew this was a historic moment,
• 9:42
  Speaker 3: but you didn't know the context. You didn't know what
• 9:47
  Speaker 3: it was all about for a while. And it was
• 9:51
  Speaker 3: just America was under attack. We were afraid. And the
• 9:56
  Speaker 3: one thing that I tried to do in all of
• 9:59
  Speaker 3: the reporting, was just to be calm and not overly
• 10:03
  Speaker 3: frighten people and just basically describe the scene as we
• 10:07
  Speaker 3: saw it.
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: Well, you did that. I will say this. In my career,
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: I've seen some awful, awful things. And it stays with you.
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: And sometimes it haunts you when you don't even think
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: about it. Is this still haunting you? Have you been
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: able to forget certain moments?
• 10:24
  Speaker 3: Well, look, I haven't been affected as severely as people
• 10:28
  Speaker 3: who lost loved ones or people who were on the
• 10:30
  Speaker 3: pile and eventually got cancer. But yes, there's a couple
• 10:35
  Speaker 3: of things. On 9-11, there's an anxiousness that I go through.
• 10:42
  Speaker 3: And when I see a clear blue sky, And I
• 10:46
  Speaker 3: see a lot of blue skies down here in South Carolina.
• 10:49
  Speaker 3: When you look at the clear blue sky, I think
• 10:50
  Speaker 3: of 9-11. It was a beautiful day, spectacular morning. And
• 10:55
  Speaker 3: the sights of those planes flying through the clear blue
• 10:59
  Speaker 3: sky to the World Trade Center and what happened after that,
• 11:03
  Speaker 3: it's beautiful. It's in my mind. It will always be there.
• 11:07
  Speaker 3: And that's what I think about when I see the
• 11:09
  Speaker 3: blue skies. And sadly, all the people that died on
• 11:12
  Speaker 3: that day, people that just went to work, they got
• 11:15
  Speaker 3: caught up in this horrific moment. And sadly, it cost
• 11:20
  Speaker 3: them their lives.
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: Joe Bartlett, former WOR news director. Thank you so much, Joe.
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: Thanks for spending some time with us this morning.
• 11:28
  Speaker 3: You're welcome, Larry. You too, Curtis. Take care.