From WNYC in New York, this is NPR's On the Media.

I'm Brooke Gladstone.

And I'm Bob Garfield.

And have we got a show for you?

Because we have handpicked from OTM's Overflowing Archive,

only the plumpest, juiciest fruits of our last year's broadcasting harvest.

And this was an eventful year, our first year, in this revamped format of On the Media.

Of course, the event that dwarfs the rest is the one that shook the country, not to mention our own offices in lower Manhattan, to the core.

OTM's producer at large Mike Peska assembled this look back at the first two days of coverage after the Twin Towers fell.

We didn't know it then, but early Tuesday morning, America was a normal place. The American media were operating as normal. The front page of the New York Times featured a primary that few New Yorkers

had been paying attention to. Fergie was discussing weight loss on Good Morning America.

Mr. Peanut had shown up on the set of the Today Show, and then the first plane hit.

We just got a report in that there's been some sort of explosion.

The terrorists had already succeeded on one count, gaining media attention, and with the cameras trained, the second hit.

We just saw on live television as a second plane flew into the second tower of the World Trade Center.

Within half an hour, a New York landmark was toppled.

The entire building has just collapsed.

The whole side was collapsed?

The whole building has collapsed.

The nation's confidence was collapsing. The whole building has collapsed. The whole building has collapsed. The nation's confidence was shattered. Wait a second. This is a live picture. This is a live picture. We are seeing

the second World Trade Tower Center, Tower number one, has just collapsed, ladies and gentlemen.

You see it live in our picture.

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