Vanity Fair: Diane, you were on live TV when the first plane hit the north tower on 9/11. How did you manage to keep your composure as the attacks were unfolding in real time?
Diane Sawyer: Well, I don’t think it was about me. It was about all of us. Charlie and I were on the air doing Good Morning America. And like so many people watching, your first default position when something’s inconceivable is you try to come up with rational explanations. You say to yourself, “Well, maybe that was a ghastly accident.” Then the second plane hit, and Charlie and I just said, “Oh my God, my God.” Both of us then took our hard turn into the awful reality.
David, you were just 27 at the time that you were reporting on 9/11 at WCVB in Boston, and won an award for tracing the hijackers’ path through New England. How did the events shape your career and desire to be in broadcast news?
Sawyer: Of course David was only 27. How unfair is that?
David Muir: Nothing can really prepare you for these moments as a human being. I remember being dispatched to Logan Airport in Boston and being on the air for many, many hours once we realized that two of the planes had taken off from Logan Airport. In those early moments, you do go to a place in your mind, not necessarily on the air or as a reporter, but quietly in your own mind you are hoping that there is some explanation for this. That this must be an accident, even though you know the evidence is mounting in real time right in front of you.
Muir, who was 27 years old at the time, reporting live from Logan Airport in Boston on September 11, 2001.Courtesy of ABC
One of the truest horrors of that day, and there were many, was the fact that so many people called loved ones after the first plane hit. So then the country was watching as that second plane hit. One of the things you do as a journalist your entire career, but particularly on that day, is to stay true to what your job is, to try to stay calm and steady. But I remember, even as a young reporter, watching Diane and Peter Jennings, and one of the things you learn in watching them is that the truest journalists aren’t afraid to show their humanity.
