Steve Doocy and Brian Kilmeade are preparing for a reunion of sorts that neither is eager to remember. On September 11, 2001, both Fox News Channel personalities were working on air as news organizations throughout the New York area were trying to cover devastating attacks by terrorists on the two massive skyscrapers at the World Trade Center. It’s just one of those days where you sit up a little straighter because of the gravity of the day.” For Kilmeade, the day marked a turning point in his career at Fox News, because he was dispatched to get to downtown Manhattan and capture what was happening.
I was always doing sports on the morning show,” he recalls. But after a surreal trip downtown with crew members, he says, “they no longer thought of me as a sports guy after that. I certainly didn’t think of myself as that.” Next week, “Fox & Friends” will spend time remembering the tragedy around the 25th anniversary of its occurrence.
Doocy will host the morning program’s “Breakfast with Friends” series live from O’Hara’s Pub in downtown Manhattan just two blocks from Ground Zero. Doocy will on Tuesday travel to Washington, D.C. and speak with Tunnels to Towers Foundation chairman and CEO Frank Siller. On Thursday, Doocy will broadcast live from Shanksville, Pennsylvania, the crash site of United Airlines Flight 93.
And on Friday, , September 11th, Fox News Channel’s special coverage will commence with “Fox & Friends co-hosts Kilmeade, Ainsley Earhardt and Lawrence Jones broadcasting live from the Hyatt House in Jersey City, overlooking the New York City skyline, while Doocy will contribute live from Ground Zero. Other programs will also nod to the anniversary. Martha MacCallum, host of “The Story,” will feature an interview with Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the New York Police Department co-chief chaplain.
Fox News’ efforts will join those of ABC News, NBC News, CBS News, MS NOW and CNN. The 25th anniversary of the attacks has spurred many news organizations to offer a broader array of programming, which in most years is largely tied to comemmoration. Many journalists had to pivot on 9/11, moving from traditional morning-news programming to rolling crisis coverage.
Not many of them remain on active duty. Kilmeade still has vivid recollections of his time visiting Ground Zero on the actual day planes crashed into the two World Trade Center towers. It felt like you were on the moon.” He remembers handing in tapes of what he and the Fox News crew assigned to him had collected, “and I’ve never seen them since.” In a sign of how unexpected the attacks were, Doocy was, before chaos erupted, tending to something entirely different for the Fox News morning program.
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