How TV Helped America Heal After 9/11

DENIS LEARY, PRODUCER, writer and actor, is best known for Rescue Me, his darkly comic tribute to New York firefighters that aired on FX from 2004 to 2011.

- Denis Leary

He’s also founder of The Leary Firefighters Foundation, which provides funding to fire departments around the country. So he was the perfect choice to provide the segment introductions for CNN Films Presents 9/11 Fifteen Years Later, an update of the prize-winning documentary detailing the tragic day the World Trade Center towers were destroyed by terrorists. (More than 39 million people watched the first airing on CBS in March 2002.) Here, Leary shares his thoughts about how TV helps heal the nation in times of crisis.

I was a few miles north of the World Trade Center that day, watching ambulances and fire trucks rush down the highway and hundreds of ash-covered people stream uptown. I heard on my truck radio that a plane also crashed into the Pentagon, but it wasn’t until I got back home hours later that I finally saw the images. What we saw with our naked eyes was so emotional, but watching it on television from all angles was even more horrifying and powerful.