The collection by includes more than 20 channels of international TV News over seven days, and select analysis by scholars. The footage begins shortly before the first reports.

In , the NBC morning show Today begins as usual, panning over a crowd of pedestrians gathered to watch the broadcast. Just as news anchor Ann Curry begins to talk about the segments, the show suddenly breaks away into a commercial and then comes back almost immediately with live video images of the first terrorist strike on the World Trade Center; NBC's news anchors are obviously stunned and unsure about what had taken place. The contrast is jolting.

The Internet Archive said the purpose of the new resource entitled, "Understanding 9/11: A Television News Archive," is to help scholars, journalists and the public research the week of news broadcasts for analysis. According to The Internet Archive, 71 people worked to compile the coverage of the terrorist attacks.

"Understanding 9/11" is not the first archive detailing a history of events as covered by the Internet and mass media. In 2009, the non-profit organization opened its , which archived every Webpage created from 1996 to the present.

For example, the Wayback Machine shows .