Broadcast and cable newsrooms are treating Friday’s 25th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks as a full commemoration day, with live reports from New York, the Pentagon and Shanksville, Pa., plus primetime specials.
NBC: Today airs a special edition at 7 a.m. ET, with Savannah Guthrie at Ground Zero and Craig Melvin co-anchoring. At 8:30 a.m., Guthrie anchors an NBC News Special Report covering the moments of silence; that report also streams on NBC News Now. Tom Llamas is set to anchor special editions of NBC Nightly News and Top Story from Ground Zero. At 10 p.m., Lester Holt hosts a Dateline documentary that revisits New Yorkers filmed by NBC on Sept. 11, 2001, and follows them 25 years later. NBC News Now later streams NBC Nightly News Presents: Great Americans: Service and Sacrifice. Coverage also runs on Meet the Press and NBCNews.com.
ABC: Good Morning America, World News Tonight, Nightline, This Week and The View are carrying remembrance pieces. At 7 p.m., ABC News Live and WABC stream a one-hour Prime from Ground Zero with Linsey Davis, Sade Baderinwa and Mike Marza. At 8 p.m., David Muir, Robin Roberts and Diane Sawyer anchor the live hour 9/11 Tribute in Light: Live from Lower Manhattan on ABC, Disney+, Hulu, National Geographic and ABC News Live, produced with the 9/11 Memorial & Museum and ending with the Tribute in Light beams. From 9–11 p.m., ABC repeats Michael Strahan’s two-hour special 9/11: United We Stand – 25 Years Later.
ABC: Good Morning America, World News Tonight, Nightline, This Week and The View are carrying remembrance pieces. At 7 p.m., ABC News Live and WABC stream a one-hour Prime from Ground Zero with Linsey Davis, Sade Baderinwa and Mike Marza. At 8 p.m., David Muir, Robin Roberts and Diane Sawyer anchor the live hour 9/11 Tribute in Light: Live from Lower Manhattan on ABC, Disney+, Hulu, National Geographic and ABC News Live, produced with the 9/11 Memorial & Museum and ending with the Tribute in Light beams. From 9–11 p.m., ABC repeats Michael Strahan’s two-hour special 9/11: United We Stand – 25 Years Later.
CBS: CBS This Morning originates at Ground Zero with Gayle King, Nate Burleson and CBS Evening News anchor Tony Dokoupil; Norah O’Donnell reports from the Pentagon starting at 7 a.m. At 8:30 a.m., Dokoupil and O’Donnell anchor a 90-minute special report on the New York, Pentagon and Shanksville memorials, also streaming on CBS News 24/7, which plans all-day coverage from 7 a.m. Primetime includes the two-hour Daughters of 9/11 at 9 p.m. on CBS and Paramount+, following Elizabeth Miller, Jessica Trant and FBI agent Frank Pellegrino on whether Khalid Sheikh Mohammed will face justice. CBS is also posting archival 60 Minutes 9/11 reporting online.
CNN Live 9/11: 25 Years Later coverage begins at 7 a.m. Kate Bolduan anchors from Memorial Plaza at the National September 11 Memorial & Museum; Brynn Gingras reports from the ceremony. John Berman and Sara Sidner are in New York, Brian Todd in Washington and Danny Freeman in Shanksville. The coverage is set for CNN, CNN International, CNN en Español, CNN.com and CNN’s streaming service. The network already aired related films earlier in the week (9/11 and Top of the World).
MS NOW: The former MSNBC has been grouped with the other majors as planning anniversary programming, but unlike NBC, ABC, CBS, Fox and CNN it has not issued a detailed public rundown of Friday anchors, locations or specials in the same industry wrap-ups. Expect the regular daytime and primetime lineup—Morning Joe and later opinion hours included—to fold in ceremony coverage and remembrance interviews rather than a separately branded multi-hour special that has been announced in full.