“Something blew up under the World Trade Center on Friday and New York was converted, via newspaper headlines, to a city under siege—a place where no one is safe.”  

On the morning of February 28, 1993 — two days after an explosion turned the World Trade Center’s subfloors to rubble, killing six and injuring more than 1,000 — Warren Levinson introduced the fourth week of Inside Media, which would return two weeks later as On the Media. The first hour of the show was planned to be about the media’s coverage of the run up to America’s military intervention in Bosnia, but the explosion made that story seem like an afterthought. Broadcast live less than 48 hours after the explosion, there were not yet any official reports on the cause of the blast, so speculation by the media was running rampant as to whether or not it was a bombing and, if so, who was responsible. With troops about to land in Bosnia, some suspected a party related to that dispute, while rumors of a phone call from a Colombian source claiming responsibility also circulated.

Levinson’s guests that day included Jane Hall, a New York-based Los Angeles Times reporter (and future On the Media host) and Anne Nelson, executive director of the Committee to Protect Journalists. The panel explored the story's local and national angles: How was the ensuing destruction and investigation affecting travel into and around the city? How did the local media inform and, in some cases, aid the public in the immediate aftermath of the blast? How did this confirm the national narrative of New York as a violent hellhole after what Jane Hall called “the urban nightmare” had actually happened? Were some in the media behaving irresponsibly for quickly dubbing it a terrorist attack without official confirmation?

This episode provides a fascinating snapshot of a time of much uncertainty and resiliency, and in retrospect, a precursor to 9/11 and the events that would follow.