Reporters Notebook

The Cut

“The Cut” is a weekly reporters notebook-type essay by an Ideastream Public Media content creator, reflecting on the news and on life in Northeast Ohio. What exactly does “The Cut” mean? It's a throwback to the old days of using a razor blade to cut analog tape. In radio lingo, we refer to sound bites as “cuts.” So think of these behind-the-scene essays as “cuts” from Ideastream's producers.

Remembering 9/11 with service, not despair

Ideastream Public Media | By Jeff St. Clair

Published September 11, 2025 at 10:00 AM EDT

Remains of the World Trade Center Friday, Sept. 14, 2001 in New York City. Photo by Paul Morse, Courtesy of the George W. Bush Presidential Library

Everyone old enough to remember 9/11 recalls where they were that day.

I was at a public radio conference in Philadelphia. Someone interrupted our session with the news that a plane had struck one of the Twin Towers in New York City. We crowded into the lobby to watch the big screen TV, just in time to see a passenger jet streak into the second tower in a burst of fire. We knew then the first plane wasn’t an accident. America was under attack.

Later we learned a third plane had crashed into the Pentagon.
A fourth, headed for the Capitol, went down in rural Western Pennsylvania. The clear, blue sky of 9/11 mocked our shock and grief. I can never again appreciate a beautiful September day without a subtle feeling of dread.

Program directors group photo — Jeff St.Clair, top row sixth from left, at the Public Radio Program Directors workshop, Sept. 11, 2001 in Philadelphia.

9/11 marked the end of what I remember as a time of peace and prosperity during the late 90’s, when the only turmoil was a White House sex scandal.

The pre-9/11 world now seems like a sepia-toned age of innocence compared to the uncertainty that grips 21^st Century America. Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the Great Recession, Covid, chaotic change under President Trump and wars in Ukraine and Gaza have all but shattered our collective sense of well-being. It seems it all started on that fateful day in September, 2001.

My lingering sense of despair is lifting a little after I learned this year about new efforts to remember 9/11 in a different way.
People in Cleveland are stepping up to work together to redirect the anguish into public service. The 9/11 Day of Service invites people to gather at Cleveland State University’s Wolstein Center to help local food banks sort and package goods.

The idea to remember 9/11 in a different way has been in place since 2009, when President Barack Obama named it as a National Day of Service and Remembrance and Congress officially ratified it.

I’m inspired that people are turning painful memories into positive action. Next year, I hope to join them.

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