BILLINGS — Twenty-five years ago, four hijacked planes turned a fall morning into one of the darkest days in American history. More than 2,000 people were killed, and for those who remember, the day is often defined by one question: Where were you?
On Sept. 11, 2001, four hijacked planes became weapons in the deadliest terrorist attack on U.S. soil. Two crashed into the World Trade Center in New York, one struck the Pentagon, and a fourth crashed in a field in Pennsylvania after passengers attempted to take control of the plane.
More than 2,000 people were killed.
Watch the full story looking back at the Q2 newsroom and 9/11 coverage, 25 years later:
Many can still picture the room, remember the television, and recall the moment they realized something had changed.
But for a generation born after 9/11, it is history they know through images, stories, and the people who lived it.
I was born in 2002. My mother was a flight attendant at the time, just finding out she was pregnant with me before the towers were hit. I entered a world that had already changed.
The same is true for many young journalists.
"On 9/11 I was a little baby, and my mom was actually taking me to daycare that day," said MTN reporter Hannah Pedeferri. "She heard about the Twin Towers coming down on the way, and turned around and went home."
"On 9/11, I was not yet born. I was not an idea, even. I was born in 2004," said MTN reporter Grace Harvey.
For MTN Evening Anchor Andrea Lutz, 9/11 happened just as she was beginning to learn what it meant to be a journalist. It was her first week of college at the University of Montana, just starting her journalism courses.
"That day, we didn't talk about journalism. We just watched the coverage, and it was just crazy," Lutz said. "You're getting that intro to journalism right when this huge crazy breaking news story happens, and that was like the first day of college for me."
For Lutz, the timing left a lasting impression. She was being introduced to journalism at the same moment the country was experiencing one of the biggest breaking news events in modern history.
“For me, I was looking at it as, one, our country is under attack. And two, this is like the future of my business,” she said. “This is how they cover it. And this is why television is so important.”
Lutz said a friend called her that morning in a panic.
"He was like, 'Turn on the TV. We're being attacked,'" Lutz said.
Turning on the TV was what almost everyone did. The image of the plane hitting the second tower became etched in the minds of millions. But 25 years ago, inside the Q2 newsroom, there was little time to think about what the day would mean for the future.
For longtime Q2 evening co-anchor Jay Kohn, who anchored at the station from 1998 to 2019, the memory comes from the other side of the camera, sitting next to his co-anchor Julie Lovell, delivering the news of that day.
"It was just one of those days that has just etched in my memory," Kohn said. "'The Attack on America' is what we call it here at Q2," Kohn said.
Kohn said not even those in the newsroom could fully process what they were seeing, but people came to work ready without question. Viewers needed information, and the newsroom had to find it.
"There's no processing during that day, because we had a job to do," Kohn said. "Because the people that watch the news, they just want to know the news, and they want to know everything's okay. And that was one day that I'm not sure that was the message we got across, but we did the best job we could."
The station was live at 5:30 and 10 that night. Each story in those newscasts provided a local angle to the national tragedy still unfolding, from how the Billings airport shut down, to reactions from local officials, to finding personal connections, like a group of Billings women who were visiting New York when the attack happened.
“The airport was shut down. There was nothing happening at the airport,” Kohn recalled. “And then we discovered, you know, people from Billings were at the scene at 9/11, you know, Ground Zero.”
The national tragedy happening thousands of miles away suddenly had a local face, and the newsroom responded the way newsrooms often do during a crisis: by working.
"We had just some great reporters back then. Everybody just stepped up," said Kohn. "It's when the chips are down, and you need people to perform, they do, they did."
The work did not stop when the newscast ended. For Kohn, the emotional weight of the day finally began to sink in afterward. He remembers going to a local bar with then-news director Jon Stepanek.
“We were just sitting at the bar, kind of looking at each other going, ‘What just happened?’” Kohn said. "'Yes, I will have another one, but what just happened?'"
The country was trying to answer the same question. In the days that followed, Americans saw an outpouring of patriotism and a sense of unity that Kohn says is difficult to imagine in the same way today.
“Our country is so divided these days, but that really coalesced the whole country into ‘United We Stand,’” he said.
In Billings, American flags printed by the Billings Gazette appeared in windows. United We Stand shirts became common, including in the Q2 newsroom.
“We did the news wearing the T-shirts,” Kohn said.
Lutz remembers that feeling, too.
“There was a shift in the United States, for me,” she said. “You saw Americans really start to rally around each other. You saw this fire of patriotism pop up.”
The attacks also changed journalism. The demand for continuous coverage helped shape a generation of journalists and pushed television news further toward around-the-clock breaking news.
"It probably changed a lot of journalists that day and how they look at news and how they cover things, but definitely changed it for me," Lutz said.
Kohn, now retired from anchoring, said time has gone by fast.
"I can't even believe it's been 25 years," he said.
When I reminded him he was being interviewed by someone who wasn't even alive when the attacks happened, he laughed.
"I can't even believe that," Kohn said.
Twenty-five years later, the way people get news has changed, but the fundamental responsibility remains: to show up when something happens and to help a community understand what comes next.
"I look back at how fast things have changed, and they continue to evolve. I mean, that's the amazing thing, not just in our world but in our workplace, in our lives, the technology we used," Kohn said. "Savor every moment, because 25 years from now you'll go, remember that day?"
The journalists who covered 9/11 firsthand are now reflecting on an event being remembered by reporters who know it primarily through archival video and stories from people who lived through it.
Yet the emotions surrounding the day can still feel familiar.
Kohn said he has seen the same instinct to help one another during more recent tragedies, including most recently in Billings when 8 people were killed in a mass shooting and house fire.
"I think in the depths of tragedy, people do come together and find a way to support each other," said Kohn. "We saw that here just a couple weeks ago, and we saw that with 9/11. We've seen it time and time again."
Even after 25 years — after the world changes, after the news moves on — people still find a way to keep going.
"The good news that comes out of tragedy sometimes is enough to level out the playing field so we don't feel we can live another day," said Kohn. "There is some hope."
