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What were you watching when.....?

The Los Angeles riots after the Rodney King verdict. Riots occured all around the nation.

OJ Simpson car chase was carried by all networks.

Challenger and Columbia Space Shuttle explosions. ( I believe Apollo 1 fire was also carried, but not old enough to remember.)

No riots in New York City during the L.A. riots. IMO the riots damaged the reputation of Los Angeles for years and led to both the Rams and Raiders leaving nearly 3 years later.
 
No riots in New York City during the L.A. riots. IMO the riots damaged the reputation of Los Angeles for years and led to both the Rams and Raiders leaving nearly 3 years later.

I think you are right. I was at KHJ on Hollywood Boulevard when it became obvious that the riots were expanding outside the area where the trigger incident occurred. As the rioting and burning expanded to the north, it became obvious we were in a vulnerable area. We got hold of a former Special Forces guy, who came over and we stood on the roof of our two story building watching the burning coming closer and closer.

At one point, the Pier 1 across the street was broken into. We were concerned that, upon finding that the store was full of wicker and wood articles and not TVs and appliances, the looters would torch it, and the embers might well hit our roof. So the guy with me shot out several Pier 1 windows, high enough to not hurt anyone. The looter jumped out the windows and into their car... and a nicely placed round took out their radiator with a loud hiss. They were not going to do much more looting.

Others tried to go into the store. A round was fired at each group, hitting the pavement a few yards ahead of them. They quickly scattered.

Down the street, a Thai gentleman owned a liquor and convenience store. We saw looters rip up one of those free newspaper stands and throw it into the window, smashing a big hole. They then entered the store to be met by the owner who was behind the counter with shotguns. He fired several times above the intruders, and they dove out the window as if in an Olympic swimming event.

After all that, the word apparently spread that our piece of the boulevard was off limits and the thugs adjourned to Hollywood and Vermont, where a Circuit City and a Ralph's market were swept clean of nearly everything; TV crews in their helos showed them with shopping carts full of TVs or liquor or expensive groceries rolling in groups down the streets.

Business was off immediately. Retail traffic was cut by the fear of going outside. Advertisers cancelled. Sporting events were nearly empty. The pictures were all over national TV and print media. Many got guns and permits.

I had just moved to LA two months before. The riots changed my perspective towards the city.
 
I remember the LA riots quite well actually. Was watching a hockey game from the CBC that was in OT, but at the same time watching KNBC's coverage of the riots. That was when i had one of those big dishes back then.
 
Although I really didn't know who she was at the time (I was 7), I remember watching Americas Most Wanted when they broke in to announce Princess Diana's death.

On 9/11, I was about 20 miles from the Pentagon. We had just gotten to school and our teacher took us to the school library to start working on a project. I passed by the librarian's office while looking for a book and happened to see they had the TV on the Today Show, where I saw that the Twin Towers were on fire, but I didn't think much of it and went on about my day. Later that afternoon, our teacher told us we weren't going to go out for recess because it was her birthday (which was true, she mentioned it the day before), again thinking nothing of it, we all went on about our day.

I got on the bus that afternoon and turned my Walkman radio on DC101, like always, which is when I heard the actual news of what happened. We weren't told about it in class, because one of my classmates had a parent who worked at the Pentagon and the school was trying to confirm if the parent was safe or not, luckily he was safe as he didn't go to work that day for whatever reason.
 
Great story done a few years ago by ESPN on the Sunday Morning "Outside the Lines" which has some great off air audio before they come back and make the announcement as well as the story of how ABC News was able to get the story so quick.(A little spoiler here, not how you would expect to get a major news story)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-F3MJjcRkc

I can see why Cosell did that; but he and Gifford were correct to discuss that off the air. However i have give a lot of credit to Frank Gifford; i don't think any other play by play man could do what Frank did and that was to convince Howard to announce Lennon's death.
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3pEzzqm4pOE

The heavens gate mass murder in 1997. That was some scary times though because there were fears that another Jim Jones has came into play but this time in San Diego. THe debate over did the victims choose to commit this or were they forced by leadership to act that way and was always hard to understand though because the families of the deceased like Peoples Temple victims and Heavens gate victims blame the leaders for forcing their family members to die via poisoning.
 
No riots in New York City during the L.A. riots. IMO the riots damaged the reputation of Los Angeles for years and led to both the Rams and Raiders leaving nearly 3 years later.

I don't remember any riots in Baltimore, DC, Wilmington, or Philly in the wake of Rodney King. Where I lived at the time, I could in all the Baltimore stations as well as the DC and Philly VHF stations.

ixnay
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OapPeL-69Ns

Jonestown incident 1978 KGO-TV had to pre-empt primetime programming to air the murders in Guyana. Note initial reports said Mass Suicide but subsequent evidence said that "The Peoples Temple" leadership ordered the 900 deaths to take place.

November 1978 was a bad time to be San Francisco. The Peoples Temple was based there, and also that month, Mayor Moscone was assassinated, all in the course of about a week.

ixnay
 
Coverage of Apollo I fire

Apollo 1 fire

First bulletin was a v/o bulletin slide on ABC-TV. The other two networks came on with short interruptions with live anchors shortly afterwards. NBC was still doing Gulf Oil instant news reports then. I think ABC did a wrap-up at 10 Eastern, and all three did something at 11:30 pm … I think!
 
And Peter Jennings Editorializing …

]
The Gulf War [and] Peter Jennings …

I was watching ABC online at work, and about 1:00 PM Jennings comes on and says, "And now to explain why this is the fault of the United States, are some Muslim authorities …" I was so enraged i dumped the link, then couldn't get back into the Internet the rest of the afternoon.
 
Simulcasting remote stations during disaster …

The Cox station here in Atlanta twice, in my memory, picked broadcasts from its corporate affiliates. Once was during Hurricane Andrew they carried the audio of Miami's Cox station (WQAM? because the local signal was lost due to the transmitter being knocked out and the authorities wanted information to be getting to citizens. They carried it until up in the morning after the storm's strike. WSB was "clear channel" 50KW back then, so the signal drove right into central and southern Florida, where it was needed.

I think they also carried some coverage from some California stations during the 1990s earthquakes. Why? Because they could, I guess.
 
I can see why Cosell did that; but he and Gifford were correct to discuss that off the air. However i have give a lot of credit to Frank Gifford; i don't think any other play by play man could do what Frank did and that was to convince Howard to announce Lennon's death.

Yet when Rolling Stone did their Lennon tribute issue, Humble Howie was claiming that he was chomping at the bit to tell the news--since it was much more important than any football game.
 
http://www.cc.com/video-clips/nzaljj/the-daily-show-with-trevor-noah-james-comey-s-walk-of-shame

Here the Daily show had a clip where Los Angeles TV stations cover the former FBI leader James Comey get escorted by the CHP on the 405 freeway to the LAX airport once he learned that he got removed by the president Trump's cabinet.

Damn I saw this on KABC7 News on their news on feed and I thought this was some random chase at first. But It turned out that it was connected to the president.
 
http://www.cc.com/video-clips/nzaljj/the-daily-show-with-trevor-noah-james-comey-s-walk-of-shame

Here the Daily show had a clip where Los Angeles TV stations cover the former FBI leader James Comey get escorted by the CHP on the 405 freeway to the LAX airport once he learned that he got removed by the president Trump's cabinet.

Damn I saw this on KABC7 News on their news on feed and I thought this was some random chase at first. But It turned out that it was connected to the president.

I watched Comey's cruise to and takeoff from LAX live on FNC via Fox 11 LA.

ixnay
 
I first found out about almost all of the recent tragic news events first by social media.

Same here but with that being said has anyone fell for "breaking news" and it turned out to be false ?? I did once !! The "death" of Beverly Archer who played Iola on Mama's Family. The message boards on Facebook and the like were blown up by this story. However Beverly herself sent a message via Twitter saying more/less that not only she isn't dead but she is in very good health. Archer added thanks that people were concerned. Some years back there was the rumor that was on social media that the city of Denver was going to outlaw soda pop and cigars for "health reasons". I had so many people send in links and such about it but living in Denver I knew that wasn't true and it wasn't.
 
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I had dozed off after class the day the 1991 Gulf War started, I woke up and flipped on the TV expecting to see Jeopardy--and learned the news.

I recall news of the Branch Davidian compound being stormed happening during the network evening news (east coast), precipitating one of those breaking-into-the-newscast type situations.

Challenger--I was in school, saw it on a TV in the lobby between classes.

Regan being shot--was carried on the news in the car when picked up from school (on the way to a music lesson of some sort or another--it's been a while)

9/11--was at work, and walked out of an early meeting to see news in the aftermath of the Pentagon being hit on the lobby TV; quickly learned the rest of the story from colleagues

Columbine--was working at home, and saw it first pop up on social media--I couldn't bear to turn on a TV to see that

Aurora--saw it during an early morning workout at the gym

Some I don't remember--Columbine, World Trade Center 1993, Oklahoma City--I know I would likely have been at work at various places, but don't recall the particulars of when I heard about them.
 
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