September 11 and the Moment News Entered the Digital Age

Summary

• September 11 happened as television, the web and digital photography were beginning to converge
• Only 7% of U.S.
• adults had home broadband on September 10, 2001
• More than 30 million Americans looked for news online on the day of the attacks
• Digital photography dramatically reduced the time between capture and publication
• Online communities and citizens foreshadowed today's participatory news model
• The Library of Congress preserves more than 30,000 websites documenting the online reaction to the attacks
• Today's visual challenge has shifted from speed to authenticity because of AI and deepfakes

September 11, 2001 happened at a technological turning point when television still dominated, but the internet and digital photography were already beginning to shape how the world would experience news over the following decades.

The attacks on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon were first and foremost a human and historical tragedy, but 25 years later they can also be viewed as a pivotal episode in media history: millions were watching television, others were searching for information on the web, and photojournalists were right in the middle of the transition from film to digital cameras.

That matters today because many characteristics of modern news —continuous image flows, eyewitnesses publishing material, livestreaming and the expectation that we should know what is happening almost immediately— did not suddenly appear with the smartphone. September 11 was one of the moments when this new model could already be seen taking shape.

A television-era news event already pointing toward the internet

In a new Vanity Fair analysis, David Friend argues that 9/11 coincided with the emergence of a new media condition: a world in which huge populations could watch almost the same event at the same time through networks of images and information. Friend connects that transition with the spread of the World Wide Web, electronic and satellite news transmission and digital photography.

September 11, however, was not yet a smartphone-era event. There was no YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or TikTok, while the ability of an ordinary citizen to livestream video from a device in their pocket simply did not exist.

That is precisely what makes the day so interesting as a point of transition. The old and new eras of media were coexisting.

Television was still king

The media environment of 2001 was very different from today’s.

On September 10, 2001, only 7% of U.S. adults had broadband at home, according to Pew Research Center data.

After the attacks, use of news websites rose sharply. Pew recorded that 36% of internet users looked for news online during the first two days. On September 11 alone, more than 30 million people in the United States turned to the web for information.

And yet even many internet users temporarily left their computers and turned to television. Pew noted that overall online activity declined during the first days, even as demand for news surged.

9/11 was therefore an enormous television news event that happened just as the web was beginning to claim a new role.

Digital photography was changing photojournalism itself

At the same time, another revolution was taking place, one much closer to photography.

Professional photojournalists were gradually moving from film to digital cameras. The difference was not simply about storing images on memory cards instead of film. The crucial factor was time.

With film, a photograph had to be developed, selected and usually scanned before it could be transmitted. With digital capture, that process could be drastically shortened: capture, selection, basic editing and electronic transmission.

In an event where every minute had journalistic importance, that change was enormous.

One example used by Friend is photojournalist Bill Biggart, who worked with both film and digital equipment on September 11. Biggart was killed near the World Trade Center and his digital material was recovered later.

His story shows, in the harshest possible way, how literally two photographic eras were coexisting.

The internet was not social media yet, but users were already behaving differently

The larger shift did not concern news organizations alone. It also concerned their audiences.

Today it is taken for granted that an eyewitness can shoot video, upload it and become a source for journalists around the world.

In 2001, that model existed only in a very early form, but the behavior was already present.

Pew recorded that within the first 48 hours after the attacks, 13% of internet users participated in online communities, chat rooms, bulletin boards or mailing lists. At the same time, millions were using email and the web to exchange information, search for relatives and follow developments.

There was no News Feed or “Go Live” button. But something immediately recognizable today had already emerged: the viewer was beginning to become part of the information flow.

The web’s reaction became a historical archive

Online activity surrounding the attacks became historically significant enough to be archived almost immediately.

The Library of Congress, together with the Internet Archive and other organizations, created the September 11, 2001 Web Archive. The collection includes more than 30,000 websites captured from the day of the attacks through early December 2001.

The archive includes websites from news organizations and government institutions as well as organizations, schools, businesses and individuals.

That matters for the history of digital news. For the first time, the collective reaction to a major global event was not preserved only in newspapers, television tapes and photographic archives. It also survived inside the web itself.

From “get the image there fast” to “prove the image is real”

The technological evolution from 2001 to today can almost be described through a problem that changed form.

In 2001, the challenge was speed.

How quickly could a photojournalist transmit an image?

How quickly could a television network broadcast it?

How quickly could a website update without collapsing under traffic?

The smartphone has largely solved those problems. Today, the same device can shoot a photograph, record high-resolution video, edit it and broadcast it live around the world.

As a result, a major event may be documented simultaneously by hundreds or thousands of cameras.

Generative AI, however, now creates the opposite problem.

The image can reach everyone in seconds, but viewers can no longer assume that what they are seeing was actually captured by a camera.

Friend connects this development with today’s crisis of trust around imagery, deepfakes and misinformation.

The biggest change is where the camera is

There is another way to understand the last 25 years.

In 2001, the camera was primarily in the hands of the photojournalist, the television crew or the occasional citizen carrying a camera or camcorder.

Today, almost everyone carries a camera, an internet connection and a publishing platform at all times.

That did not simply increase the number of images. It changed who gets to decide which image reaches the public.

The old model had relatively few entry points: newspapers, agencies and television networks. The modern model has millions.

That produces far more evidence of an event, while at the same time placing far greater importance on verification, file provenance and context.

The photographic memory of September 11

Technology explains how images reached audiences. It does not explain why some images remain alive decades later.

September 11 photography continues to be the subject of historical research and exhibitions.

The Witness to 9/11 exhibition at the New York State Museum, featuring more than 60 photographs by Todd Maisel and David Handschuh, presents Maisel’s camera alongside the photographs and other objects from the World Trade Center.

Similarly, the Smithsonian selected three photographs of the Twin Towers before, during and after September 11, showing how photography transforms a building from part of everyday life into historical evidence and eventually collective memory.

What makes those images particularly interesting is that they belong to a period just before visual imagery became almost unlimited.

Today there are more cameras, more files and more visual perspectives on an event than ever before. That does not necessarily make it easier to understand what happened.

September 11 did not create digital media by itself

It would be an exaggeration to claim that everything began on September 11, 2001.

The internet was already growing. Digital photography had already started replacing film in important areas of professional photojournalism. Satellite television had already created global networks of immediate news distribution.

9/11, however, brought those technologies together around an event that the entire world wanted to follow at the same time.

That is perhaps the most important point.

It was not so much the birth of a technology as the first massive demonstration of a new way of experiencing news.

What we think

September 11 is an especially powerful reference point in the history of visual news because it sits between two eras.

On one side were television, photographic film and traditional newsrooms. On the other, the web, digital photography and the first networks of immediate online communication had already emerged.

The smartphone and social media later completed that transition, turning almost every citizen into a potential recorder and broadcaster of an event.

Generative AI now opens a third era, in which it is no longer enough for an image to arrive quickly. It must also be possible to establish where it came from, whether it has been altered and whether it depicts something that actually happened.

From that perspective, the distance between 2001 and 2026 is enormous. Yet the central question remains the same: how does an image become information, evidence and eventually history?

Frequently asked questions

Was September 11 the first major internet news event?

No. The internet was already being used for news before 2001. However, 9/11 was one of the first global crises in which television, the web, email, online communities and digital photography coexisted on such a large scale.

How important was the internet on September 11, 2001?

Important, but clearly secondary to television. More than 30 million Americans looked for news online that day, according to Pew, while television remained the main way people followed the crisis.

How widespread was broadband at the time?

According to Pew Research Center, only 7% of U.S. adults had broadband at home on September 10, 2001.

What did digital photography change for photojournalists?

It dramatically reduced the time between capture and publication. Film no longer had to be developed and scanned before a photograph could be transmitted electronically.

What does this history have to do with artificial intelligence?

The major change is that today’s challenge is not only how quickly an image reaches the public, but whether the image is authentic. Generative AI tools and deepfakes make verification a central part of modern journalism.