bpatrick said:
To answer two questions: on the West Coast,
CBS was airing Pete & Gladys, so I would suspect
Cronkite's bulletin interrupted it. CBS suspended
all regular programming by 2 PM (ET)/11 AM (PT),
so As The World Turns would not have aired on the
West Coast that day; I don't know if that episode
ever aired at all out there.
Well, don't forget the show was aired live on the East Coast, and was not pre-taped, so they never got to complete that day's performance, considering as it was only a few minutes into the show when it was interrupted, and I'm sure the actors were soon informed of the news and the fact that they were no longer on the air. They probably started the same episode over from the start when regular programming resumed the following week.
bpatrick said:
But yes, we have had a thread covering this same ground.
I don't think, however, that the four days of almost-nonstop
coverage (some networks signed off at night) has been equaled
or exceeded by anything except 9/11; that coverage went nonstop
for, what, seven days?
You know, I have always regretted that of the hundreds of books that were penned about that historic event, no one ever wrote a good, comprehensive history of how TV covered the tragedy. It was, after all, a major nexus or turning point for the medium, and brought Americans together in a manner that had never happened before. Such a book would have included behind the scenes accounts of the chaos of getting on the air with the first bulletins; the struggle to gather information, set up remote links, and make sense of it all as it was happening; personal accounts of how individual anchors and reporters were affected by the events, etc. Such a book may not have had a huge mass-market appeal, but would have been a perfect fit for one of those academic publishing houses like McFarland, etc. (And make a great required read for all broadcast journalism or production students...)
Sadly, it will never happen, as we are now almost 44 years removed from those days, and a good many (probably a majority) of the principal players have passed on. Just take NBC as an example. McGee, Huntley, Ryan, Brinkley -- they're all gone. And most of the technicians and execs are likely gone as well. We can look at archived videotape (where it exists and is accessible), pour over programming logs and such, and piece together the scattered, unrelated comments made by some of those folks here and there over the years. But I wish someone had sat down with them not long after the fact and laid out the story of what went on during those 4 days in network and local studios, control rooms, and executive offices. That would have been a fascinating read.
