I finished the annual rewatch of Today's 9/11/01 coverage yesterday. That Katie and Matt were kept on air from 7 am - 12 pm is a testament to how respected they were as a duo who could juggle the fun parts of the program, but were also absolute pros at breaking news. Tom Brokaw joined them after about 1.5 hours and instead of letting him take over, Katie and Matt remained front and center. Especially when you consider that ABC and CBS cut away from their morning show teams within the first hour and their flagship anchors took over (Peter Jennings, Dan Rather). I've read before that Today was watched by 40 million Americans at the height of the attack coverage, not that that's anything to necessarily brag about.
I'm not entirely sure if it's because the duo anchored during the coming of the technology age, but Katie and Matt might be the best team in Today's history. Additionally, YouTube is full of some really great world and national history network news coverage. I encourage everyone to check some of it out. I was in second grade during 9/11/01 and while I remember the day itself, I was too young to remember the context of the news other than the images. Haunting yet fascinating stuff.