It said that the American President risks acting like a "despot", and "demands retribution because he cannot think of anything else to do". It's not a pacifist stance, but it is a note of caution, doubly interesting as The Mirror is thought to be close to Downing Street.There were few tricks left for the Sundays to try And it showed. The Sunday Times is rarely a market leader in photography, but it can usually be relied upon to put its lavish resources into investigation. Yet there was no Insight front page on how the terrorists did it, where they were trained etc (indeed, if a moment's blowing of a sister paper's trumpet can be allowed, the infinitely less well-resourced Independent on Sunday gave rather more information on Bin Laden).The life of a New York correspondent is a curious hybrid at the best of times: finance, showbiz, politics, high society – all, sometimes, in the same day. But covering a disaster on the doorstep meant flexing different muscles; and it had to be covered on little sleep, under great emotional pressure, often without the support of colleagues stranded by transport difficulties, and interspersed with personal pieces telling readers about their own experience of the week. As The Independent's David Usborne showed, it can be achieved with aplomb; but it demanded a flair for hard-nosed reporting and colourful writing, as well as stamina and a strong stomach.The two winners in TV were Channel 4, which dropped commercial breaks and had a two-hour special every morning, authoritatively presented by Krishnan Guru-Murthy; and News 24, which came of age with its mixture of breaking news and high-level analysis. Its coverage was also used on BBC 1 from the first day onwards.There are two important points that follow on from this.

First, the fact that BBC 1 immediately took News 24 coverage and leant on it in the following days shows that the two services can and should be more mutually dependent. The BBC likes to rule out the possibility of News 24 running all the TV news bulletins, claiming that production values are different. But after last week's success, I predict that the case for more collaboration – and an eventual merger – could prove irresistible.Second, part of Channel 4's success is due to its immediately putting The Big Breakfast on hold for a situation that demanded grown-up presenters and programmes. Years of early-morning, sofa-based trivia make it impossible to accept light-entertainment hosts reporting on tragedy and foreign-policy issues. GMTV was embarrassing, with its presenters Eamonn Holmes and Fiona Phillips lacking anything resembling gravitas. Miss Phillips's remark, "Now to the city that never sleeps, or at least hasn't slept for the last couple of days" made one wince ITN did extremely well all last week, as one would expect It services GMTV and runs a 24-hour news channel.

GMTV should, like Channel 4, have handed over the reins completely.. From the sidewalk, behind the building that houses The Wall Street Journal's offices just across the street from the World Trade towers, I didn't see the first plane dive into its target. From the sidewalk, behind the building that houses The Wall Street Journal's offices just across the street from the World Trade towers, I didn't see the first plane dive into its target. But I saw the result: an arc of debris, brilliant orange and aflame, coughed from the building southward, landing blocks away. By the time I'd got to the ninth floor of the Journal building, and taken a position at a window in the north-east corner, diagonally across an intersection from the World Trade Centre, the conflagration was well underway Great clouds of smoke pushed skyward. Intense flames were consuming higher floors above the crash site. Debris was falling on to the streets – huge chunks of metal that echoed blocks away when they hit. Office papers littered the ground.I called our partner CNBC, the business news television service, and began reporting the scene from inside our offices, beneath the burning structure.

Suddenly, I saw the second tower erupt in flame, sending more debris crashing southward. This time, the TV cameras, located in midtown Manhattan and pointed south, caught the image of a jet veering into the second tower.Evacuations were emptying buildings on both sides of the street, and more fire trucks, Emergency Medical Services, and police cars were crowding the streets. Then, as the fires worsened and the smoke got thicker, the first of the office workers began to jump. One at a time, a few seconds apart.Unknown to the dozens of firefighters on the street, and those of us still in offices in the neighbourhood, the South Tower was weakening structurally. Off the phone, and collecting my thoughts for the next report, I heard metallic crashes and looked out of the window to see the building collapsing in on itself, pancaking to the earth This was too close.