September 9, 2011

More Reflections on 9/11

 
Henry Schleiff, president and GM, Investigation Discovery; then Court TV CEO

CableFAX Daily asked several industry leaders about where they were on Sept 11, 2001. Their answers revealed not just their personal stories, but the stories of the industry. President and GM, Investigation Discovery (then Court TV CEO) shared his memories from that day. More remembrances in the Sept 9 issue of CableFAX Daily.

"As I walked in [to the NAMIC conference] they were still talking about whether the program would go forward or not. They were sort of debating the pros and cons, the argument that if they don’t go forward it shows the bad guys that they can control us and control our lives. So the argument was to go forward with the program, and literally just at that moment someone turned to me and said, “My God, the tower is collapsing.” ...I had left the conference and was now back at Court TV. My office was at 600 3rd Ave. I remember calling our colleagues at CNN. I said, let’s lose the Court TV feed and we’ll take the CNN feed and just play what’s going on. At that point Court TV was only half owned by Time Warner. It was a perfect example of the kind of cooperation and teamwork that the entire industry worked across the board with. This is just a micro example, but I called in—I think it was [Jim] Walton at CNN—and I said would it be helpful if we carried the CNN feed…you know, there was no discussion about how, it was just, here are our coordinates, tell your technical people to do this… and it was done. Not that we provided any major service through that, but the idea was that it was yet another place that people could see the news and understand the magnitude of this. I think it reflects well on not only the people at CNN, but I think it’s symptomatic of the way this industry immediately pulled together—what ways can we convey information, which was incredibly precious in that moment." -Henry Schleiff

If you would like to share your own reflections, please email CableFAX Community Editor Kaylee Hultgren at khultgren@accessintel.com or tweet them using #CableFAX.