Five years ago, Long Lead launched its first feature, Long Shadow: 9/11’s Lingering Questions. Produced during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in collaboration with the Pulitzer-finalist historian, journalist, and author Garrett Graff and Goat Rodeo, this podcast is a testament to what great journalism does best: It asks the hard questions and answers them, without fear or favor.
Today, we return to the podcast with a new episode that asks “What is the legacy of 9/11?” — a chapter of this story that couldn’t have been written when this Signal Award-winning series was first released in 2021.
In the wake of the September 11 attacks, a promise echoed through the halls of the U.S. government: “Never again.” Fueled by post-9/11 fear, the country’s leadership embarked on the largest bureaucratic overhaul in half a century, consolidating 22 federal agencies under the banner of the Department of Homeland Security. The new bureau’s mission was simple: Keep the nation safe and stop the next attack at all costs. But over the years, the obligation to safeguard the country slowly laid the groundwork for a different kind of terror — one we’re seeing on America’s streets today.
In this new, special episode of Long Shadow, released 25 years after the attacks, Graff — who has been covering corruption at the Department of Homeland Security for more than a decade — traces how the government’s response to the events of September 11 led to the buildup of a massive federal police force, an apparatus that has been overtaken by a wave of corruption and criminality amounting to one of the most destructive scandals U.S. law enforcement has ever faced.
“Still reeling, our nation had a decision to make,” Graff says in the episode’s opening minutes. “What liberties would we sacrifice to protect our freedom? How much power would we give our government? In the wake of 9/11, we couldn’t see what was being created.” What was ultimately constructed, he says, is a “national secret police force stronger and larger than our country could have imagined in August of 2001.”
Marking the dividing line between the 20th and 21st centuries, the events of September 11, 2001 quickly became the hinge upon which so much changed. Many watched the tragedy unfold live on television, but most still don’t understand what happened that day. Twenty-five years later, more than a third of Americans are too young to even remember the tragic event. While thorough, large-scale efforts like the 9/11 Commission tried to make sense of that chaotic day, many questions remain. This first season of Long Shadow attempts to answer them and explore other enduring mysteries surrounding September 11.
Among the most critically acclaimed journalism franchises of the decade, the four seasons of Long Shadow make sense of what people know — and what they thought they knew — about the most pivotal moments in U.S. history. Through riveting, complex narratives, the podcast has cast new light on events including Waco, Columbine, Y2K, 9/11, COVID-19, January 6, and beyond.
A winner of eight Signal Awards, an Edward R. Murrow Award, and an RFK Human Rights Journalism Award, Long Shadow was named a “Best Podcast of 2024” by The Atlantic and Audible and “Best Podcast of 2025” by Rolling Stone. Its Peabody Award-finalist third season on America’s gun violence epidemic has been integrated into Harvard Law’s curriculum on the Second Amendment.
While I’m proud of all the work we’ve produced at Long Lead, as our first feature, Long Shadow: 9/11’s Lingering Questions holds a special place in my heart. Published before Long Lead even had a website, it was thrilling to watch this unknown show rocket to the #1 spot on Apple Podcasts’ history chart in 2021.
Published to commemorate 9/11’s 20th anniversary, the show’s first season is as relevant today as it was then. Over the years, I’ve heard from many listeners — including high school teachers who play it for their students — who tell me they listen to the podcast each year to remind themselves of the horrors our nation faced, and overcame, during such a dark and uncertain time.
At Long Lead, the success of this series (and the podcast’s subsequent seasons) has given us faith in the mantra that we developed in the company’s earliest days: “journalism without compromise.”
Now, more than ever, the world needs uncompromising journalism that courts neither the establishment nor the algorithms. And working alongside the world’s best and boldest independent journalists, Long Lead will continue to deliver it.
So long for now,
John Patrick Pullen
Founding Editor, Long Lead