What 9/11 terrorist attacks taught me about breaking news coverage

From where I sit On The Kowch, the 9/11 terrorist attacks on America changed how I produced breaking news coverage. I had no choice because events happened so quickly in the time span of one hour and 42 minutes.

It started with the first plane hitting the South Tower of New York's World Trade Center at 8:46am

Seventeen minutes later a second plane crashes into the North Tower at 9:03am

Thirty-four minutes later a third hijacked plane crashes into the Pentagon in Washington DC at 9:37am

Twenty-two minutes later the South Tower starts to collapse at 9:59am

Four minutes later a fourth hijacked plane crashes into a Pennsylvania field

Twenty-five minutes later the North Tower starts to collapse at 10:28am

It never stopped! We never had a chance to catch our breath and digest what had just happened.

The staff at CFRB had covered their share of multiple death disasters but nothing prepared them for their role on that day.

I reassured everyone that we covered these kind of stories in the past. We covered plane crashes, highrise building fires and multiple deaths. Maybe not as many on one day as we were dealing with on September 11, 2001, but we've covered these kind of stories before.

And that's when it hit me.

The only way to get through this was to focus everyone on the most important question I now ask during breaking news coverage.

What are we missing?

Every 10 or 15 minutes I called a quick huddle of everyone working on the story. Producers, hosts, board operators, news people and anyone else watching it unfold on television or listening to coverage on the radio.

What are we missing?

This focused everyone on the coverage. Everyone had an equal say on the matter because everyone sees or hears things differently. Everyone has their own ideas of what we did, didn't do or should do.

Our people are the most important resources and when the shit hits the fan you need to tap into all the resources you have to refocus what you're doing every 10 or 15 minutes so you don't miss anything.

This provided everyone an opportunity to take a deep breath.

To collect their thoughts.

To speak their mind.

To work as a team.

What are we missing huddles led us to:

• Book expert guests who could answer the questions that needed to be answered
• Steer our reporters to seek out information we thought was missing.
• Focus on air hosts to provided further explanation of what was happening
• The rebroadcast of interviews, eye witness accounts or reporter updates in the field to put the story in context
• To provide a local angle or local reaction to the events that were unfolding in the US
• To provide international reaction to the terrorist attacks

From where I sit On The Kowch, what are we missing is now the most important question to ask during breaking news coverage. If you're the host, the reporter, the producer, the operator, the anchor, the Program Director, the News Director or the General Manager you need to ask yourself and people around you what are we missing every 10 to 15 minutes.

It works on big stories and small stories. It works because no one can think of everything on their own. Especially during breaking news events while you're live on the air.

Click here for more breaking news coverage tips.

Steve Kowch was program director of two of Canada's largest newstalk radio stations for 14 years

Steve has produced special coverage programming that won more than 30 local, national and international awards

He can be reached at steve@kowchmedia.com

www.facebook.com/kowchmedia