Do you remember what you were doing right before the 9/11 attacks, and how did that moment lead you to different choices?
For Carol Lin, a 20-year broadcast news veteran who was credited as the first national journalist to report the first 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center in 2001, it was a “turning point” in her career — and life, she says.
It sent her overseas to cover the war in Afghanistan, among other global events, while also reconciling her marriage with late husband, Will Robinson, whom she met at CNN and had been diagnosed with a fatal cancer. The pair had hoped to become parents, and did in 2003 to their daughter Chloe, though, Robinson died when she was 10 weeks old.
CNN Anchors Vince Cellini and Carol Lin, right, on the morning of 9/11 just before the terrorist attacks. (Courtesy Carol Lin) 
Lin reporting on the Afghanistan border one month after the 9/11 attacks (A scene from Ch. 1 of "When News Breaks"). (Courtesy of Carol Lin) 
Lin living along the Pakistan Afghanistan border post 9/11. (Courtesy Carol Lin) 
Will Robinson and Carol Lin hold newborn baby, Chloe. Robinson was diagnosed with cancer while Lin was pregnant and died shortly after their daughter was born. (Courtesy Carol Lin)
After she left the network in 2008, Lin, who is from Los Angeles and now lives in Hawaiʻi with husband Mike Dowling, started to pen a memoir of her experiences, but set it aside until a couple of years ago when Chloe was in her early 20s. Her book “When News Breaks: A Memoir of Love and War,” published by Third Rail Press, dropped in December 2025.
“To write this memoir, it was only possible if I did not think of how many people are going to read this. It’s not about selling books or putting myself out there again. But writing this was really for my daughter,” Lin told Aloha State Daily in a recent interview. “She was asking the questions I asked at her age about life stuff: who we love, why we love, why we choose a career or stay with a career that no longer serve us. I wanted her to understand that beyond the facade of who she knew me as a mother that there was this woman who made choices.
“But what the story really is about is a complicated love story with an older news man and a career, and in this arc, the readers will meet my traditional Chinese parents who escaped the communists.”
The book’s cover features jade jewelry, symbolic of a woman’s sacrifice, Lin says, which serves as a reminder of when her great grandmother passed down jade to her mother as a wedding gift and a goodbye; her mother, who barely spoke English, would leave China for the U.S. and marry at 16 years old.
Her parents both played a different role in her reasoning to get into journalism, she reflected upon while writing. Lin described her late father as an academic who encouraged her to read and write with encyclopedia sets and would often talk of the American Dream. Conversely, her mother warned her “that words would never love me back,” Lin says, and that she’d blend in better as a nurse, school teacher, or engineer.
Lin committed to words and got her start at a satellite news company, which grew into roles at a small local station in Northern California before she eventually went on to anchor for major networks such as ABC News and CNN. “This was a career that was killing me,” according to Lin.
Becoming a mother; however, was even more daunting, Lin shares, noting that her community showed up to help, including to her surprise, her mom.
“I knew nothing about motherhood and had never even changed a diaper before, so I really had to make decisions about who I was going to be and how those decisions were going to be guided through this post 9/11 era,” she says. “The takeaway of ‘When News Breaks’ is really what happens when news breaks for all of us. … You never know how you’re going to respond in that moment or how it will shape who you are becoming. It’s really to honor that split second before and after, and how that moment impacted us for better or worse.”
Ahead of the 25th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, Lin has returned to her journalism roots to help individuals around the world tell their personal stories from 9/11 and share them collectively on Substack and her Instagram.
This week, she’ll be headed to New York for an author talk at 7 p.m. on Thursday, Sept. 3, at the Bedford Playhouse Clive Davis Arts Center. On Sept. 11, Lin will be at Zibby’s Bookshop from 6 to 7 p.m. in a joint event with author and Dateline NBC correspondent Josh Mankiewicz.
Earlier this year, she held a book signing at Barnes & Noble in Ala Moana Center, with plans to continue her book tour throughout 2026.
Her advice for aspiring authors? "Write every day for an hour, even if it's just observations of your day or journaling, she says, noting that her own book used artifacts when available, including old letters, journals, and her news stories. Join a writer's group and constantly get feedback, she adds.
"Write what is in you that you must write and do it because you love it."
“When News Breaks: A Memoir of Love and War” is available for purchase on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop and Better World Books.
Kelsey Kukaua Medeiros can be reached at kelsey@alohastatedaily.com.
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