9/11 survivor Carol Marin in 2009: ‘You spend the rest of the time trying to reconstruct the moment that you didn't die’

Sept. 11, 2001, by wallyg (Flickr)

When the World Trade Center towers fell in New York Sept. 11, 2001, award-winning TV, newspaper and internet reporter Carol Marin was there.

When I was tapped for the first time to host a WGN-AM 720 show in 2009, Carol was my first choice for a guest, and she graciously agreed to join me.

In this archival audio, you’ll hear her explain her 2006 vow to “quit talking about” 9/11, which she said was necessary to help her stop “trying to reconstruct the moment that you didn’t die.”

You’ll also hear her concerns regarding the state of journalism. (“I’m blogging, I’m tweeting, I’m Facebooking — I mean, good grief!”)

Here’s my Sept. 10, 2009, interview with Carol Marin, witness to one of the saddest days in American history.



Footnotes:

• When the towers fell Sept. 11, 2001, I was inside Tribune Tower, working with a team of dedicated reporters to get the story out by email despite the Chicago Tribune’s website failure (due to a flood of traffic).
• Carol’s Sept. 10, 2006, essay in the Chicago Sun-Times—“I will never forget what happened on Sept. 11. But I think it’s time I quit talking about it”—seems not to have survived on the paper’s website, but libraries have it.
• Two-and-a-half years after our WGN talk, Carol interviewed me on WTTW-Ch. 11.