Commentary: Twenty-five years ago, television was the only guide through the horror and chaos of 9/11

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Set us as preferred A hundred and two minutes.From first impact to final collapse, the Sept.

11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and United Airlines Flight 93 took less than two hours, on a day that felt like it would never end, in large part because so much of it was documented live on television.Everyone over the age of 35 remembers where they were when they saw the Twin Towers fall, either in real time or in replay.

No one could watch and not be changed.And everyone watched; 90% of Americans received news about the attacks from television, in homes, offices, restaurants, schools — anywhere and everywhere Americans gathered transfixed by screens filled with images that burned into our collective consciousness.

ABC, NBC and CBS provided five full days of 24-hour coverage.Twenty-five years later, 9/11 exists in context: an event with background, details, aftermath.The victims, the survivors, the heroes all have names, faces, life stories; many of the terrorists identified as being involved in the attacks are dead or in jail.

There are books, films, series, news specials, memorials and a museum devoted to understanding and remembrance.Safety measures, particularly in airports, remind Americans every day that there is a “before 9/11” and an after.On the actual day, however, there was mostly television.

Unfathomable, disorienting and heart-rending television.There was no context, no warning, no words to explain the enormity of what was happening as it happened.

Terrorist attacks had occurred in the United States before — the 1995 bombing of the Alfred P.Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City was still fresh in our memories and the World Trade Center had been attacked in 1993 by a van bomb that killed six.But the idea of suicide bombers using commercial aircraft as weapons was beyond comprehension — as Ray Bradbury said at the time, no fiction writer would dare.

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