Speculation had been rampant all evening as I anchored my weekend news show that Sunday night, May 2, 2011, from Washington D.C.
Usually based in New York, we were there for the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, held the night before. Ordinarily a sleepy Sunday night show, this broadcast promised to be lively because Saturday’s Correspondents’ dinner had been a blast, featuring President Obama taunting and belittling the presidential aspirations of reality TV star Donald J. Trump, who was in attendance.
That playful tone abruptly changed early the next evening when it was announced that President Obama would address the nation. He was certainly not going to be talking about either Trump or the jokes at dinner.
The show was live at 9 p.m. With rumors percolating all night about what the president was about to say, my team and I were working our sources, from reporters abroad to the internet, which were suggesting all kinds of ideas. Then it hit me like a brick.
“Wait a minute, hold it. Ladies and Gentlemen, something I just thought of…What if it’s Osama bin Laden?” Having said the words, the hunch soon became history, confirmed by the White House.
The news electrified the nation, leading to jubilation and spontaneous celebration from crowds gathering outside the White House and on campuses, bars, taverns, frat houses, and in homes everywhere, chanting USA, USA.
It is an anniversary I shall never forget.
“It is the greatest night of my career,” I exclaimed the moment the news was confirmed. “The bum is dead.”
Our special forces had killed the person responsible for taking 2,977 innocent souls when 19 hijackers drove four aircraft into the Twin Towers, the Pentagon and into a now hallowed field in Pennsylvania on 9/11.
Calling it my “Finest Moment,” the Mediaite columnist said, “He was the only journalist on the air that night with his heart sufficiently placed on his sleeve to stop being an anchor for a little bit of time and just react like a human, specifically a New Yorker.”
Source: LI Press
