Memories of 9/11 From Inside the Belly of Talk Radio

” Well, that’s weird”.

When my then-fiancée ( now my wife ) told me that a plane had just struck one of the Twin Towers, it did n’t register as anything nefarious. I was getting ready for work, and I assumed it must have been pilot problem. We were aware, however, when the next plane crashed into the following tower.

We all knew. &nbsp,

Immediately.

On Sept. 11, 2001, I was working at 1250 WTMA television in Charleston, South Carolina—” Your news-talk president in the Low Country”! We were the top-rated news station in the Charleston marketplace, but we were n’t alone: There were seven or eight sister stations under our roof, too. Our family corporation owned a kills of channels, but we were the largest. Most of the others only had bone crew and were run via servers patched to satellites, whereas we had an entire group of on-air skills and a dedicated, award-winning media personnel.

Plus … me!

I was the low man on the Low Country totem pole when I was in my 20s. I was hired to produce a three-hour weekday show for Nancy Wolf, and I also had my own ( low-rated ) talk show on the weekends. Producing a talk show can mean different things at different channels, but at WTMA, it meant that I was responsible for booking the friends, prepping the host, clipping the movie’s information, running the table, and pitching incoming calls from viewers.

Nancy Wolf not went nationwide, but she developed a strong, dedicated following in the South and was a recurring host on” Socially Incorrect” with Bill Maher. She was a quick-witted, tart-tongued right-winger with a gift for gab and the willingness to traffic in filthy, off-color jokes ( off-air ), so we got along famously.

However, there was always conflict between the WTMA media staff and the chat show team. It always happened. They were considered “hard reports”, and we were “editorial”. When tales were breaking, there’d generally be unpleasant — and highly competitive — overlap. A way of life was to use strong arms.

All conflicts were eliminated as the next plane struck the next building.

We were unsure of what was happening because our train was receiving reviews of car explosives exploding all over the nation and hear reports of other planes crashing as well. Nothing could tell which accounts were reasonable. Therefore, when we tried to call our acquaintances in New York City, everything was getting through: The New York telephone system collapsed from abuse, which merely added to the madness.

That’s probably the biggest thing the public still does n’t know: On 9/11, media outlets became inundated with false reports of all kinds of chaos, because of the uncertainty, we were n’t sure what we should tell the audience. We were hearing (unverified ) reports of car bombs exploding in downtown Washington, D. C., in New York City, in Los Angeles — everywhere! Because Charlotte is a military area, hostilities were already at a high level. We next wanted to distribute false data.

Fred Storey, our media director, pulled me aside:” Scotty, do you consider what you said in January about the election? When we were talking about Florida”?

I despondently nodded.

Nine months prior, Fred’s group was covering the “hanging chad” hubbub from the 2000 vote. The outcome of the Bush vs. Gore vote was also unsettled, and we were getting closer and closer to Inauguration Day. Fred told me,” I guarantee you, this will be the biggest history of the year”!

” Well, you better hope so, Fred”, I quipped at the time, “because, if it’s not, then everything REALLY horrible happened”.

” The election is n’t the biggest story of the year anymore, is it”? he sighed.

I had no reply.

Nancy Wolf was on the weather, but we were struggling. People wanted information — people had questions! — but we did n’t know what was happening either. We ended up bundling all the radio stations up, so we broadcast Nancy on all of them together. Nothing gave a damn about anything else that day. As far as I know, this is the only occasion that’s ever happened in the Charleston business. &nbsp,

We were trying our best, but there was a near-total media shutdown. With all unfolding in real time, the authorities was paralyzed, days went by without any changes. Our viewers was begging for someone — anything! — that may explain everything.

Eventually, I had an plan: Dolf Droge.

He was a national security tale, working for John F. Kennedy, Ronald Reagan, and every senator in between. When I interned for a radio station in Virginia, I met him, and he was just unusual: Even when the devices stopped recording, he was robbing encyclopedias of CIA past without a beat. You sort of had a suspicion that he might have contributed to the body being placed there in the first place because he not only knew where all the body were buried, but he also may have been a factor in that.

I figured, if anyone could make impression of this, it’s Dolf Droge. &nbsp,

So I called. He answered. &nbsp,

Moments later, I put him on the atmosphere with Nancy.

He remained on the weather for a while longer.

Dolf claimed to be working with al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden. He went into obvious facts about their strategy, tactics, and goals. When we asked him what we could do to prevent them, he even used the phrase “drain the lake.”

By the time we reached the hour, all was emotionally exhausted. In a single moment, Nancy had lasted through a workout show and packed in a year’s worth of work. We were physically drained.

But before we finished, one of the designers handed me an old Disc: The Star Spangled Banner.

Everyone who was present, including the on-air skill in the theater, the roommates, the corridor attendants, and those involved in media and advertising, stopped dead in their tracks when I put the disk in. &nbsp,

They all stood however. &nbsp,

And they all placed their souls atop their arms.

Nobody dared to make a decision until the very close.

At least half were crying.

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