CBS News Announces 9/11 Coverage
CBS News will mark the one-year anniversary of the terrorist attacks against the World Trade Center and Pentagon with 13 hours of live, blanket coverage of the day's events followed by a primetime schedule of programming dedicated to the anniversary.
Headlining CBS News primetime coverage of the anniversary will be correspondent Scott Pelley's exclusive interview with President George W. Bush from the Oval Office and aboard Air Force One on 60 MINUTES II, Wednesday, Sept. 11 (8:00-9:00 PM, ET/PT). Bush and his closest advisors will offer an oral history of what happened immediately following the attacks, as well as provide their thoughts on the future of America and its place in the world.
Primetime programming on Wednesday, Sept. 11 also includes the highly acclaimed CBS special "9/11,"previously scheduled for Sunday, Sept. 8, which will be broadcast from 9:00-11:00 PM, ET/PT following 60 MINUTES II. The first-person documentary was shot Sept. 11, 2001 at Ground Zero by French filmmakers Jules and Gedeon Naudet and firefighter James Hanlon.
President Bush is expected to make a televised address to the nation the night of Sept. 11 and CBS will cover the address in its entirety. The Network's schedule will be adjusted accordingly.
The 60 MINUTES special two-hour edition, originally scheduled for Sept. 11, will instead be broadcast Sunday, Sept. 8. (7:00-9:00 PM, ET/PT).
CBS News to Offer Live All-Day Coverage on Sept. 11
"The Day That Changed America," begins with an expanded special edition of the THE EARLY SHOW (7:00 AM-12:00 PM, ET) anchored by Dan Rather and Jane Clayson from Ground Zero. The program will include live coverage of events, including the commemorative ceremonies scheduled in New York, Washington, D.C., and Shanksville, Pa. Rather appeared for more than 58 1/2 hours of CBS News' continuous coverage of the attacks last year.
CBS News live coverage continues throughout the entire afternoon and into the early evening. THE CBS EVENING NEWS WITH DAN RATHER will offer expanded one-hour editions for the East Coast (6:30-7:30 PM, ET) and for the West Coast (5:30-6:30 PM, PT) with reports from CBS News correspondents around the country and the world who covered the attacks and the war on terrorism and have followed those stories ever since. In addition to anchoring the EVENING NEWS from Ground Zero, Rather will also anchor a half-hour live news special there to follow the East Coast edition of the broadcast (7:30-8:00 PM, ET).
CBS News' coverage of the one year anniversary of the terrorist attacks will kick off the preceding Sunday with an expanded one-hour edition of FACE THE NATION (10:30-11:30 AM, ET), with Bob Schieffer in Washington, D.C., and contributing correspondent Gloria Borger reporting live from Ground Zero in New York. Later that evening, correspondents from 60 MINUTES (7:00-9:00 PM, ET/PT) will provide their signature, in-depth reporting in a special two-hour edition on the stories and issues surrounding the 9/11 attacks. Among them, Ed Bradley's revisit to Summit, N.J., a commuter town that lost many residents, and Morley Safer's follow-up interview with former New York City Fire Commissioner Thomas Von Essen, who was in charge the day 343 firefighters lost their lives at the World Trade Center.
Last September, CBS News was on the air, uninterrupted, for a total of 93 hours, 8 minutes, beginning Tuesday, Sept. 11, at 8:52 AM, ET, and running until Saturday, Sept. 15, at 6:00 AM, ET. That effort marked the longest continuous coverage of any news event in the history of CBS and CBS News. (The other events whose continuous coverage had held that position were the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy - 54 hours, 53 minutes - and, in 1991, the Persian Gulf War - 41 hours, 33 minutes. In 1963, the Network signed off overnight, so, technically, there were breaks in the coverage when no Network signal was being transmitted.)