still recalls the phone-in topic on his morning radio show the day of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. “We were talking about whether you’re cheating on your significant other if you’re flirting with someone else in an online chat room,” Duran says. “And then playing a song.”
The Sept. 11 terrorist attacks kicked the nation’s TV and radio news organizations into high gear, as they quickly went live to cover the unfolding events. But also on air that day were drive-time radio personalities who suddenly had to drop the jokes, stop spinning records, and instead pivot to becoming somber lifelines as listeners looked for information and solace.
“We had everyone watching CNN and local news and Doc had the news wires as well. So we were trying to gather bits and pieces of information from any source that we could and then they would write it up and hand it to me live on the air while I was in front of the mic… The weight of having to give that information and the pressure of trying to get it right too was really tough. It was a disaster that just kept getting worse.
Back in New York, Duran and crew vacated the station after the first tower fell. “We realized we needed to get out of the building,” he says. Z100 switched to a live audio feed from one of the local TV stations. “As I was driving away from the Hudson River to my house in Jersey, I looked into my rearview mirror and I watched the second tower fall,” he says.
Garman, who left KROQ in 2017 , annually hears from former listeners too. “Every year I invariably get contacted from people who’d say that I was the voice that broke the news to them,” he says. “So many of them say, ‘We could tell immediately that this was not a bit, you weren’t being funny, something was really going on.’ I often regret the fact that we did put some stuff out there that was iffy. But I think people understood we were working with the best information that we had.
At KOST, Wallengren remembers the music mix briefly changing, with any songs that even hinted at conflict, like Pat Benatar’s “Love is a Battlefield,” pulled from the playlist. In heavy rotation were more inspirational tracks like Five for Fighting’s “Superman .” But things eventually returned to normal.
Entertainment Entertainment Latest News, Entertainment Entertainment Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
Source: etnow - 🏆 696. / 51 Read more »