Many of us still remember exactly where we were on 9/11/2001 when the news broke about the first attack at the World Trade Center. Learn how Carol Lin, the first news anchor to share this news with the nation, coped with this moment in her career and eventually with grief and loss in her personal life.
About the guest:
My special guest for this 9/11 BONUS episode is Carol Lin a long-time anchor and correspondent for CNN and ABC News. Carol is best known for being the first national news anchor to report the first 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center, which many of us can remember watching at home, glued to our own television sets in 2001. As we remember the 25th Anniversary of that horrific event Carol shares what it was like to be behind the desk watching the chaos unfold while she calmly relayed to us the shocking news. She also discusses how devastating news eventually broke apart her own life and how she navigated a high-profile career in the midst of grief and motherhood. Her memoir When News Breaks: A Memoir of Love and War was published in December 2025 by Third Rail Press. Learn more at her website:
In this episode:
- Carol’s recollections from the morning of 9/11
- What it was like to have to remain composed and report the news while events were unfolding all around her
- How she was trained to navigate those high-stress moments as a journalist and anchor
- What news anchors don’t or can’t tell listeners as breaking news unfolds
- How Carol is collecting stories of where people were when the heard the news of 9/11 and how that shaped their lives
- What changed for all of us after that initial moment of that first attack
- How identity shifts when tragedy happens
- Her experience of feeling isolated after her husband’s death as a mother of an infant
- How her coverage of other people’s loss and grief helped inform her and give her hope during her own
- How massive tragedy can create community around it
- It’s okay to do whatever you have to do with grief in order to survive – sometimes it has to be postponed
- How we gravitate toward spaces where others are dealing with loss when we are grieving
- Why a grief support group didn’t feel helpful to Carol
Links for this episode:
Related episodes
- Where is God When Tragedy Strikes? (Essay about 9/11)
Other links
- 7 Lessons for Living from the Dying by Karen Wyatt MD
- Latest post on Substack: Letting Go of Guilt
- What Really Matters Podcast: How Do I Forgive Myself?
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