This Friday marks 25 years since September 11th changed the country forever. I watched Turning Point: Generation 9/11 on Netflix this weekend, and it stuck with me. More than 100 million Americans alive today were born after that morning. For them, 9/11 isn’t a memory. It’s history, passed down the way older generations passed down stories about Pearl Harbor.
Meanwhile, 93% of Americans over 35 still remember exactly where they were that day. That gap is exactly why radio matters here. We sit between the generation that lived it and the generation learning it for the first time. Few mediums reach both audiences at once the way we do.
What This Friday Looks Like
The National September 11 Memorial & Museum built out a full slate of programming for the 25th anniversary, and it’s worth bookmarking. Families will gather at the Memorial plaza for the annual reading of names, followed by seven moments of silence. Disney and ABC News will air a primetime tribute starting at 8 p.m. ET, anchored by David Muir, Robin Roberts, and Diane Sawyer. The Tribute in Light will once again rise over lower Manhattan.
The site also runs “Remember the Sky,” an initiative asking people everywhere to photograph the sky on 9/11 and share it with a memory attached. That’s a simple, shareable moment any morning show can build a segment around.
For programmers looking to point listeners toward broader coverage, Deadline’s roundup of 9/11 TV specials is a solid resource to link in show notes or on-air mentions.
Turn the Anniversary Into a Day of Service
Radio doesn’t just have to talk about 9/11. It can act on it. In 2014, while I was at HOT 97, we organized a day of service with Ebro In The Morning. Listeners joined us and partners from the U.S. Army to help build a house in Queens for Habitat for Humanity. You can watch that day here.
That project taught me something I still believe: 9/11 hits differently when a station treats it as a day of service instead of just a day of remembrance. Federal law even designates September 11th as a National Day of Service. Morning shows are perfectly built for this. Rally your listeners. Partner with a local nonprofit. Show up together.
If your station can’t organize a full build, smaller ideas still work. Coordinate a blood drive. Collect supplies for a local firehouse. Volunteer at a food bank as a team. The goal isn’t scale. It’s participation.
Music Can Carry What Words Cannot
Sometimes a moment needs a soundtrack instead of a script. In 2021, while at Audacy, I helped produce the Stars and Strings Tribute Concert at Pier 17 in Manhattan, hosted by New York’s Country 94.7 FM. To commemorate the 20th anniversary, Darius Rucker, Zac Brown, and Chris Young performed as the Tribute in Light lit up behind the audience and a massive American flag waved off the Brooklyn Bridge behind the performers. A few hundred first responders sat in that crowd. I will never forget that night.
Not every market can produce a concert of that size, but every station can lean on music that fits the moment. Consider building a tribute playlist. Dedicate a segment to listener stories. Music gives people permission to feel something they might not put into words on their own.
A Few Ways to Start This Week
Before Friday arrives, consider a few simple moves. Link the 9/11 Memorial’s anniversary page on your station’s website or social pages so listeners have a resource. Share the boat lift documentary on social media; it tells one of the most overlooked rescue stories from that day. I re-watch it annually. Ask your morning show to spend five minutes discussing where hosts were that morning, then invite listeners to call in with their own memories.
Twenty-five years in, radio still has a job to do here. We can inform the generation that wasn’t there yet. We can honor the generation that never forgot. And on Friday, we can prove that a broadcast signal still has the power to bring a community together.
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