This month marks 25 years since 9/11, and of all the images to come out of that day, possibly the most haunting is one that was published the next morning and then quietly disappeared. Richard Drew's photo of a man falling headfirst beside the North Tower of the World Trade Center caused so much outrage when it ran on 12 September 2001 that newspapers stopped printing it almost overnight. Around 200 people fell from the Twin Towers that morning, but only one became a symbol, and journalists spent years trying to put a name to him. Should they have? This is Just The Gist of The Falling Man: the Associated Press photographer who captured every person he saw fall, the Windows on the World staff trapped above the fire, Tom Junod's 2003 Esquire story that became one of the magazine's most read ever, the search for his identity that reached the families of Norberto Hernandez and Jonathan Briley, and the widow who begged a reporter to clear her husband's name.
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Just The Gist is a Just The Network production. Executive Producer and Host: Rosie Waterland | Senior Producer and Editor: James Joseph | Producers: Kate Leaver, Hayley Staveley & Sammy Petersen | Acast Legend: Guy Scott-Wilson | Production Assistant: Pocket
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Truth about the Falling Man (Daily Mail, 2026)
Why this photographer's 9/11 'Falling Man' photo remains controversial (USA Today, 2026)
'It Became Spiritual': The Making of Esquire's 'The Falling Man' (Esquire, 2021)
9/11: The Falling Man (YouTube, 2006)
The Falling Man (Esquire, 2003)