2001: NBC’s Lester Holt, CNN en Espanol’s Juan Carlos Lopez

By Alex Weprin on September 8, 2011 10:15 AM

With the 10th anniversary of the 9/11/2001 terrorist attacks approaching, TVNewser reached out to anchors, reporters, producers and executives for their thoughts on that day, and what they believe has changed in the last 10 years.

NBC News anchor and correspondent Lester Holt, who was anchoring on MSNBC:

As I was anchoring MSNBC coverage, my attention was split between throwing to live shots, and desperately trying to email and telephone my wife to make sure the kids were ok. They attended school in the West Village and Soho respectively and ultimately looked back to see one of the towers crumble as my wife escorted them up 6th Avenue. I saved emails from that day, including one in which I write to a friend saying it’s “the biggest news story of my career” and yet what I really want to do “is go home and be with my family.” It wasn’t an option because you couldn’t get to Manhattan from our New Jersey studios at the time. Would I have really left given the chance? It’s hard to put one’s self back in that space to really ever know. But I think about it.

CNN en Espanol senior correspondent and anchor Juan Carlos Lopez, who was preparing to come into Manhattan for work:

“I still see the orange flames contrasting the clear blue sky, a gaping black hole spewing smoke; it’s the last image I have of the Twin Towers, I was about to take a train into Manhattan from the New Jersey side when I got my last look, minutes later when I got off on 34th street the towers were gone. I’m glad that in the ten years since 9/11 I haven’t had to report on any major terrorist attack on U.S. soil. Immigration became a bigger story; it became harder to cross the border, many decided to stay.