2026-09-11 13:36:00 UTC / 路透社
在最新一期《记者手记》栏目中，白宫记者史蒂夫·霍兰德回顾了他报道此次袭击的经历、现场核实信息的挑战，以及自那以后一直萦绕在他心头的往事。
当白宫记者史蒂夫·霍兰德于2001年9月10日晚间跟随乔治·W·布什总统前往佛罗里达州萨拉索塔时，他原本以为只需报道一场常规教育活动。
不料，当总统在后来被证实是珍珠港事件以来美国本土遭遇的最致命袭击中被紧急送回华盛顿时，他陷入了滞留状态。几天后，他将陪同总统前往世贸遗址。
在纪念9·11事件25周年的近期访谈中，霍兰德回顾了当天及其后续的经历、实时报道此次袭击的挑战，以及自那以后一直铭记于心的细节。
本次访谈经编辑和压缩，以确保表述清晰。
你作为路透社白宫记者，在2001年9月11日报道了乔治·W·布什的行程。能和我们讲讲你对那一天的记忆吗？
布什就职仅约8个月。当时他专注于国内政策——教育就是其中之一，他将前往佛罗里达州萨拉索塔进行访问。我于2001年9月10日搭乘空军一号一同前往，并为次日的教育活动做准备。
9月11日凌晨时分，我和布什一起在佛罗里达州的一处高尔夫球场慢跑。结束后，我和同事阿尔沙德·穆罕默德换班，回到了发稿中心。我们当然打开了电视，画面显示一架飞机撞入了世贸中心的一座塔楼。起初我们以为这是一起失误或可怕的意外，但当看到第二架飞机撞塔时，我们意识到：这是一场袭击。
乔治·W·布什当时正在艾玛·E·布克小学给孩子们读故事，他的幕僚长安德鲁·卡德凑到他耳边低声说：“第二架飞机撞上了世贸中心，美国遭到了袭击。”流传至今的经典照片记录下了布什当时震惊的表情。
我的同事阿尔沙德大声提问有关袭击的问题，但我认为他没有得到回应。很快，布什进入一间预备室，听取了事件简报。他发表声明称这是“一场全国性悲剧”，当时的表态低调克制，因为他并不清楚袭击的规模。但没过多久，他们就决定将总统带离现场，因为有报告称，除世贸中心的两起袭击外，华盛顿的五角大楼也被飞机撞击，另有第四架飞机被劫持，据称正飞往国会山。
不久之后，这架飞机在宾夕法尼亚州尚克斯维尔的一片田野坠毁。布什随即飞往路易斯安那州的巴克斯代尔空军基地，在那里听取了简报。白宫决定将记者随行团缩减一半，我的同事阿尔沙德未能登机。总统随后飞往内布拉斯加州的奥夫特空军基地，那里设有地下掩体。
留在萨拉索塔的、未随总统同行的记者团成员陷入了滞留。我们前往机场试图返程，却被告知“不行，所有航空旅行都已停飞”。我们在当地过夜，以为次日情况会好转。但情况并未改善，于是我们组织包大巴返回华盛顿。我乘坐的大巴从萨拉索塔开往华盛顿特区花了14小时，我们看到的这片区域的第一眼风景，就是带有烟熏弹痕的五角大楼。
当那架飞机在尚克斯维尔坠毁时，华盛顿陷入恐慌。特勤局下令疏散白宫，所有人几乎都在逃命。五角大楼冒出的浓烟笼罩了全城，还引发了停车场炸弹爆炸的谣言。这是我们从未经历过的场景——自1941年珍珠港事件以来美国本土遭遇的最严重袭击。
没错，那是艰难的一天。
25年前，在没有手机和笔记本电脑的情况下，你在报道此次事件时遇到了哪些挑战？
我们有手机，但当时并未像现在这样普及。我们通常会向编辑部——新闻编辑室的核心运营和编辑枢纽，负责 incoming 稿件的审核、验证和编辑，直至发布前的所有环节——口述稿件。口述稿件如今已是近乎失传的技艺——现在用笔记本电脑发稿要容易得多。我记得曾通过电话提交过一些笔记和引述。当最初的混乱过去、布什离开后，华盛顿的编辑部接手了报道工作，我们彻底陷入孤立，基本帮不上任何忙。可以说，报道任务已经脱离了我们的掌控，那种处境颇为怪异。我们的核心工作是报道总统，但他不在我们身边。我们该做什么？所以我们非常 glad 能回到华盛顿。
图1/18：行人对飞机撞击世贸中心作出反应，2001年9月11日。路透社/理查德·科恩
[1/18]行人对飞机撞击世贸中心作出反应，2001年9月11日。路透社/理查德·科恩
你们是如何在实时报道中核实信息的？
我记得我们曾转载美联社关于国务院附近发生汽车炸弹爆炸的报道，后来证明这是假消息。当然，我们注明了消息来源是美联社，但在急于发稿的情况下，我们几乎没有进行核实。我们后来发现报道不实，并发布了更正，但那是非常艰难的经历。
我们只能依靠亲眼所见。我们看到的就是我们报道的内容，但很难控制那些我们不确定真伪的其他报道的传播速度。在那样的紧急情况下，你不可能总有时间去逐一核查。这就是其中的风险。
谢天谢地，我们现在有了事实核查员。我们比以往任何时候都更需要他们！
事件的直接后续情况如何？
当时的华盛顿宛如一座武装营地。军事部署规模庞大，所有安保人员都携带重型突击武器，直升机在头顶盘旋。商业航空旅行全面停飞，这种状态持续了数日。
9月14日，布什决定前往世贸遗址查看情况。从空中可以看到世贸中心的浓烟轨迹，我们还看到了自由女神像。这是一种怪异的反差——你能明显感受到我们的民主制度正遭受攻击。空气中弥漫着浓烈的烧焦气味。
我们降落在河边的华尔街着陆区，随后前往遗址。地面覆盖着厚厚的一层灰烬。消防员们疲惫不堪，他们列队迎接布什。对总统而言，这是一场充满情绪的访问。当时有人担心周边建筑可能因世贸中心倒塌受损而坍塌，但他们确认总统可以安全前往。时任纽约市长鲁迪·朱利安尼——一位以强硬著称的市长——带领总统进行了参观。布什开始向消防员发表讲话，人群喊道：“我们听不见。”布什的高级助手卡尔·罗夫找来一个扩音器递给总统，总统说道：“我能听见你们！全世界都能听见你们！那些推倒这些大楼的人——很快也会听到我们所有人的声音！”
那一刻，我能感觉到历史已经改变，我们即将进入战争状态。我背上的汗毛真的竖了起来。
总统离开时天色已晚，一群纽约市民手持蜡烛，沿着总统车队路线列队举行烛光仪式。我这辈子从未见过这样的场景。你知道，纽约人通常都颇为直率，但你能明显感受到他们深受此事的触动。
在那个时刻，你的报道重点是什么？
布什所说的“那些推倒这些大楼的人很快也会听到我们所有人的声音”这句话，促使我们开始前瞻性地思考即将发生的事情。我们知道奥萨马·本·拉登是个威胁。怀疑的矛头立刻指向了他，美国开始准备入侵阿富汗，因此我们追踪了每一步相关动向。我们知道布什想要抓捕奥萨马·本·拉登，这是一种罕见的情况——追捕单个个人。这是我们报道中非常特殊的焦点。此外，还有人员伤亡、针对此次事件的应急响应、商业航空旅行将何去何从，以及为应对这一新威胁，机场现在需要采取哪些安全防范措施。
你是在什么时候意识到，这起事件的影响将远超这场直接悲剧本身的？
我想说几乎是在事发瞬间。我们都知道这是我们从未经历过的事情。
当时外界高度关注劫机者。19名劫机者中有15人是沙特国民，主谋、埃及人穆罕默德·阿塔曾在佛罗里达州接受飞行训练。因此我们围绕这一点做了大量报道，探究他们是如何逃过安检的。我们真的深入挖掘了这个故事。
25年后的今天，那段时期有什么事情至今仍让你难以忘怀？
就是那一周发生的一切，以及布什在未来几周内发动的战争，这些至今仍伴随着我们。基地组织与其他组织的冲突仍在持续。我们不断卷入中东的战争，最近一次是特朗普时期对伊朗的行动。这是我得到的最主要的感悟。
我跟你讲一个轶事：我在世贸遗址时穿的就是这双鞋，当时地面的灰烬太厚，完全盖住了我的鞋子。当晚回到家后，我把它们放进塑料袋收进了衣柜——它们已经没法再穿，但对我而言意义非凡，舍不得扔掉。这双鞋现在还在我的衣柜里。我一直保留着它们，作为那段艰难时期的纪念。
9/11, 25 years on: the Reuters reporter who was with George W. Bush that morning
2026-09-11 13:36:00 UTC / Reuters
In the latest edition of Reporter’s Notebook, White House correspondent Steve Holland recounts his experience covering the attack, the challenges of verifying information on the fly, and what’s stayed with him since.
The second tower of the World Trade Center explodes into flames after being hit by a airplane, New York September 11, 2001 with the Brooklyn bridge in the foreground. REUTERS/Sara K. Schwittek/File Photo
When White House correspondent Steve Holland followed President George W. Bush to Sarasota, Florida, on the eve of September 11, 2001, he expected to cover a routine education event.
Instead, he found himself stranded as the president was whisked back to Washington amid what would later become the deadliest attack on U.S. soil since Pearl Harbor. Days later, he would be accompanying the president to Ground Zero.
In a recent conversation marking the 25th anniversary of September 11, Holland reflects on his experience that day and in its aftermath, the challenges of reporting the attack in real time, and what has stayed with him since.
This conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.
You were covering George W. Bush on September 11, 2001, as Reuters’ White House correspondent. Can you walk us through what you remember of that day?
Bush had only been in office for about eight months. He was focused on domestic policies — education being one of them — and he was going on a trip down to Sarasota, Florida. I flew on Air Force One down there on September 10, 2001, and we got prepared for an education event the next day.
In the pre-dawn hours of September 11, I was with Bush as he went jogging around this golf course in Florida. When he was done with that, I swapped out with my colleague Arshad Mohammed and went back to the filing center. We had TVs on, of course, and there was one plane sticking out of one of the World Trade Center towers. The first plane we thought might have been a mistake or some terrible accident. But as we watched the second plane hit, we thought, okay, this is an attack.
George W. Bush was at the Emma E. Booker School reading a book to school children when his chief of staff, Andrew Card, whispered in his ear, “A second plane hit the World Trade Center; America’s under attack.” There are these iconic photos of Bush with that shocked look on his face when he was told.
President George W. Bush is informed of a second plane hitting the World Trade Center. REUTERS/Win McNamee/File Photo
My colleague Arshad shouted out a question about the attacks. I don’t think he got an answer to that, but very quickly Bush went into a holding room and got a briefing about what had happened. He made a statement calling this “a national tragedy”; it was a low-key statement at that point because he wasn’t aware of the scale of the attacks. But very quickly they made the decision to get him out of there because reports were coming in of not just the two (attacks) at the World Trade Center, but a plane had hit the Pentagon in Washington. A fourth plane was hijacked and believed to be headed to the Capitol.
Soon after that, the plane crashed into a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. Bush immediately flew to Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana, where he got a briefing. The White House decided to cut the press pool in half, so my colleague Arshad was left off the plane. The president then flew on to Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska, where they had this underground bunker.
Back in Sarasota, the members of the press corps who weren’t with the president were stranded. We went to the airport to try to fly back and were told, “No, all air travel is grounded.” We spent the night thinking things would improve the next day. They did not, so we organized charter buses to take us back to Washington. The one I was on took 14 hours to drive from Sarasota back to D.C., and the first view we saw of the area was the Pentagon with the smoking gash through it.
Rescue helicopter surveys damage to the Pentagon Building as firefighters battle flames after a terrorist airplane crashed into the U.S. military Headquarters outside of Washington, September 11, 2001. REUTERS/Larry Downing/File Photo
When that plane went down in Shanksville, panic gripped Washington. The Secret Service ordered the White House evacuated. Everybody was basically running for their lives. The plume of smoke from the Pentagon wafted over the city, and it led to all these rumors that a car bomb went off. It was unlike anything we’d ever seen — the worst attack on U.S. soil since Pearl Harbor in 1941.
Yeah, that was a tough day.
What challenges did you face covering the event 25 years ago, without mobile phones and laptops?
We had cell phones, but they weren’t as widely used as they are now. Quite often we would dictate stories to the desk, the newsroom’s central operational and editorial hub that handles, verifies, and packages incoming stories pre-publication. Dictation of a story is kind of a lost art — it’s much easier to use a laptop and file stories now. I remember filing some notes and quotes by phone. Once we got through the initial rush there and Bush had left, the desk in Washington took over, so we became marooned and not much use to anybody. The story had left us, basically, and that was kind of an odd place to be. Our primary function is to cover the president, he’s not with us. What are we going to do? So we were glad to get back to Washington.
Item 1 of 18 Pedestrians react to planes striking the World Trade Center, September 11, 2001. REUTERS/Richard Cohen
[1/18]Pedestrians react to planes striking the World Trade Center, September 11, 2001. REUTERS/Richard Cohen
How did you go about verifying information in real time?
I remember we picked up an AP report about a car bomb exploding near the State Department that turned out to be wrong. We attributed it to AP, of course, but in the rush to get stuff out, there was no verification really. We later saw that it was not true, and we put that out, but that was very difficult.
We relied on our eyeballs. What we saw was what we reported, but it was hard to control the flow of some of these other reports that we weren’t quite sure were true. In an emergency like that, you can’t always take the time to check it out. That’s the hazard here.
Thank goodness we now have the fact checkers. We need them more than ever!
What was the immediate aftermath like?
Washington was an armed camp at that point. There was a huge military presence. All the security guards had heavy assault weapons; helicopters were flying overhead. Commercial air travel completely shut down. This went on for days.
On September 14, Bush decided to go up to Ground Zero to check out the site. You could see the smoke trail from the World Trade Center from the air, and we also saw the Statue of Liberty. It was a weird juxtaposition — you could tell that our democracy was under assault. The burning smell was very strong from the air.
We landed at the Wall Street Landing Zone, right by the river, and went to the site. There was a thick coating of ash everywhere. Firefighters were exhausted. They lined up to greet Bush. It was a very emotional visit for the president, and there were concerns that some of the surrounding buildings might cave in because they’d been weakened by the World Trade Center collapse, but they figured out that it was okay for the president to go. He was led on the tour by then-New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who was known as a very strong mayor. Bush began speaking to the firefighters and they shouted, “We can’t hear you.” Karl Rove, one of Bush’s top aides, found a bullhorn and gave it to the president and he said, “I can hear you! The rest of the world hears you! And the people — and the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon!”
Then-President George W. Bush is shown with retired firefighter Bob Beckwith (R) at the scene of the World Trade Center disaster, September 14, 2001. REUTERS/Win McNamee/File Photo
A group of firefighters walk amid rubble near the base of the destroyed south tower of the World Trade Center in New York on September 11, 2001. REUTERS/Peter Morgan/File Photo
Firemen gather at a destroyed firehouse next to the fallen World Trade Center towers as they take a break from rescue efforts in New York, September 13, 2001. REUTERS/Pool/Beth Kaiser
It was a moment that I could tell that history had changed, that we were going to be on a war footing now. The hair on the back of my neck literally went up.
It was nightfall by the time the president left, and a bunch of New Yorkers had candles and lined the motorcade route with this candlelit ceremony. I’d never seen anything like that in my life. You know, New Yorkers are usually fairly brash people, but you could tell they were deeply affected by this.
At that moment, what was your coverage focused on?
The words that Bush said — the people who knocked down these buildings will hear from all of us soon — prompted us to think very forward about what was going to happen. We knew that Osama bin Laden was a threat. Suspicion immediately turned to him and the United States began preparing for an invasion of Afghanistan, so we were following every step of that. We knew that Bush wanted to get Osama bin Laden, and this was a rare thing, to go after one single individual. That was a very special focus for us in our reporting. Plus, the human toll, the emergency response to what had happened, what’s going to happen to commercial air travel, and the safety precautions needed at airports now to address this new threat.
At what point did you realize that this story was going to have consequences beyond just the immediate tragedy?
I would say pretty much immediately. We knew that this was unlike anything we’d ever seen before.
There was a lot of focus on the hijackers. Fifteen of the 19 were Saudi nationals and the ringleader, Egyptian national Mohamed Atta, had flight training in Florida. So we did a lot of reporting around that; how they managed to slip through. We really went hard after that story.
The shoes worn by the author at Ground Zero. Photo courtesy of Steve Holland
Is there anything from that period that still stays with you, 25 years on?
Just that what happened that week and the war that Bush would start in the weeks ahead, that’s still with us today. There’s still this conflict with Al Qaeda and other groups. We just keep getting into wars in the Middle East, most recently with Trump in Iran. That’s the main takeaway I have.
I will tell you this anecdote: I was wearing this pair of shoes that day at Ground Zero, and the ash was so thick on the ground that it covered my shoes. When I got home that night, I put them in a plastic bag and in the closet because they were too ruined to wear but too dear to me to throw away. And those shoes are still in my closet. I kept them all this time as a kind of a remembrance of that difficult period.