Another Question Regarding 11/22/63 News Coverage

[ercjncpr]

Dan Rather phoned in an unconfirmed report that JFK was dead that
got on CBS radio; Rather has said it was the longest
wait of his life, since what if the report hadn't been
true? It was, of course, and Rather scored a "beat"
on everyone else.

I read the book many years ago, so refresh my memory -- wasn't the situation that Rather was carrying on two conversations at once -- one on the phone to CBS, and the other either on another phone or with someone physically next to him, and that basically when CBS asked if JFK was confirmed dead, Rather was in the process of responding to something the other party said, saying "yes" and CBS thought he was answering their question and put it on the air?

I think this episode was on NBC with Frank Reynolds repeating a conversation over the phone confirming the injuries were fatal, because for whatever reason, they couldn't get the "source" on the line, or preferred not to. The "As It Happened" video is truely amazing as how primitive the technology was in '63. This is a great video, and from what I understand, hard to come by these days. I feel fortunate to have recorded it off A&E years ago.

Yes you were lucky. The History Channel did a 2hr heavilly edited version of the CBS coverage serveral years ago using the same "As It Happned" title

 

[searadiofreak]

Yes, and I need to transfer to DVD soon or it will be gone. Just found the VHS this evening. Some comments:

WNBC was running "Bachelor Father" at 1:45pm EST, when Don Pardo (yes, the SNL Don Pardo), broke in with audio only of the news that Kennedy had been shot.

The broadcast on A&E ran the exact NBC coverage minute by minute in November of 1988.

The first visual studio coverage included Chet Huntley, Bill Ryan, and Frank McGee. They were not on the main set, instead what looks to be an auxillary set, perhaps because it was easier to light and get the camera warmed up, maybe also because it was used during the Today Show and was still "hot".

The coverage went on for a good while with little new information. Then, Frank McGee gets on the phone with Robert McNeil (later PBS famed anchor), who is in Dallas. But the audience cannot hear McNeil, so McGee repeats the phone conversation. (This has the surreal effect of listening to another person talking on the phone but only hearing part of the conversation).

Chet Huntley then tries to attach some sort of phone amplifying gadget to McGee's phone, but doesn't seem to know how to do it. Moments of technical chaos insue, and finally we hear McNeil. But, as mentioned in a previous post, McGee doesn't realize this.

No more info is new, so they put McNeil on hold. More repetitive info is reported for another 10-15 minutes.

In the meantime, NBC cuts to their Dallas affiliate, which is in color, as opposed to NBC's B&W!

David Brinkley comes on with a report from DC, but there is still no new info. Brinkley seems remarkably calm and collected.

Then, back to McGee trying to talk to McNeil on the phone. Still no luck in getting McNeil's audio on the air.

Then, a flash, announced by Bill Ryan, "two priests in Dallas say Kennedy is dead from bullet wounds." (apprx. 2:35pm, about 50 minutes since NBC's coverage began.)

Back to McGee and Robert McNeil on the phone, STILL with no audio from McNeil at first. Then, they get his audio on the air, and McGee doesn't realize it so continues to repeat everything that McNeil is saying, and the audience is also hearing.

Of course, this presentation continued for hours, but that is "As It Happened", as brodcast by A&E in 1988.

 

[searadiofreak]

If anyone would like a DVD copy of the above, I'd be happy to transfer...contact me via pesonal message and we can discuss. It's about two hours worth of video I believe.

 

[donnyg]

Dear Searadiofreak,

I would love to have a copy of it, however I am on a fixed income so I couldn't pay a lot. What part of the U.S. are you in. I live in Denver. Incidentally, did you know that if you go to http://earthstation1.com and click on multimedia, you can watch all of NBC's coverage divided into 10 different parts.

Donny G ;D

 

[searadiofreak]

Thanks, donny. I found that site somewhat difficult to navigate. The only JFK material I found was audio recordings. What I have is the actual A&E coverage of NBC's minute-by-minute coverage. If this is on this site, I couldn't find it. Either way, looks like they are charging for it. My primary motive is not to make money, but to allow others to share in a rare broadcast. If this is on this site, please step me through how to find it, because I couldn't navigate it. But thanks for your response!

 

[donnyg]

Hi,

It's really pretty easy. When you get on the site, go to the bottom of the page, there's a link that says online multimedia archives, click on that, that takes to their archive site, then find the link that says John F. Kennedy Media, that opens up the section dedicated to JFK. Find the link labeled assassination, that opens up all those media files starting with KBOX then about third or so on the list it says JFK assassination tv coverage, it's the NBC coverage, right from the beginning to sign off at approximately 1:00 AM EST Saturday 11/23/63. The broadcast is divided into ten parts, you need real video to play it and it's FREE!!!

The best part of the coverage, if there is a best part to that sort of news, is the first part, I think with all the technical difficulties and trying to act like they didn't get caught with pants down so to speak, however in reality, I think they did. However a nice recovery right about the time they officially announced JFK's death, as they finally got the phone hookup working.

And did you catch the other guy from WBAP TV Tom Whelan when they are playing the Jean Hill interview, first he's telling someone to shut up so he can hear, then he credits one reporter with the interview, then at the end he credits himself for the interview. I know everything was extreme but he needed to at least get credit right for who did the interview, but I digress.

Donny G

 

[searadiofreak]

Donny, I finally found that A&E broadcast on the site you referenced. However, that site IS a bit busy IMHO.

While they show the minute-by-minute, the quality is less than perfect, and when expanded to full-screen a lot of definition was lost. Not to toot my own horn, but my copy is broadcast quality, crystal clear, less some slight VHS tracking issues,hardly noticable.

I can still offer this version on DVD to anyone interested. My only fee is for my time and supplies...very modest. It is more important to me for others to have copies of this historic broadcast, not just for the news elements, but for how primitive news media was at the time and how it has changed.

If there is interest, send a personal message on this site to me, and I will see what I can do for you.

 

[Tim from Springfield IL]

11/22/63 ATWT and Cronkite bulletins now found online!

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.

The only one that came close was an issue of TV Guide from January 1964, which had an extensive article on how television handled the assassination that day.

Now I wonder how CBS handled the three soaps which aired before ATWT:
Love Of Life, Search For Tomorrow, and Guiding Light? In 1963, those shows
aired on the West Coast at (respectively) 11 AM, 11:30 AM, and 11:45 AM,
after all commercial programming had been suspended on November 22.

Good question, and one I never thought of. I suppose the options would have been:

(2) Pick up on 11/26 with the next scheduled episode, but allow the West Coast affiliates to show the taped 11/22 episodes at their discretion during non-network hours. That would be confusing, though, as schedules would not have been updated in time and many viewers wouldn't know the "missed" shows were being rebroadcast.

Considering that all three networks were at full tilt with the assassination coverage until long after Kennedy was buried, would any affiliate even have time to catch up on pre-empted programming?

I'm sure many of you have wondered whether this was online anywhere, but last night I found (on the Truveo website, which searches YouTube, MySpace.com videos, and other video websites) the 11/22/1963 episode of "As The World Turns" (interrupted exactly at the 10:00 mark for the first Cronkite bulletin of the shooting)--as it originally aired (original commercials, ATWT intro, program bumpers, all of the bulletins, etc.). The program was posted in two parts:

http://www.truveo.com/As-The-World-Turns/id/1541264369

(12 min, 59 sec.) (Part 1--includes first Cronkite bulletin. The sound in the opening Niagara commercial after the ATWT intro was going in and out, but otherwise the rest of the video is in good quality).

http://www.truveo.com/As-The-World-Turns-Part-2/id/1650711755

(16 min, 36 sec.--after the ATWT mid-program bumper and another Cronkite bulletin, briefly returns to ATWT and two Friskies commercials--the second of which was interrupted at the 4:43 mark in the video. At this point CBS went wall-to-wall assassination coverage until after JFK's funeral on Monday, Nov. 25).

I've been hoping to find this ATWT and all the Cronkite bulletins online in its entirety for a long time, as opposed to just seeing clips and highlights in documentaries and specials on the JFK assassination. I could just feel my heart racing right as early as when the NuSoft ad aired about four minutes before the first Cronkite bulletin.

 

[Stanislav]

GREAT find -- thank you!! This video used to be hosted by a soap website (I don't recall which -- it's in a thread somewhere here) that is now largely defunct, so someone may well have saved it then and uploaded it to DailyMotion (the actual source, as Truveo is just a search service for video). I'm letting those download on my mega-crappy connection now as I am about to go back to bed -- hopefully they will be there for me when I get up. I, too, have been wanting to see this half hour of TV history unfold in "real time" for as long as I've been interested in how TV covered 11/22/63.

 

[Stanislav]

I'm about to run out the door, and have only watched the first segment so far (which only covers the first bulletin). Obviously this is right off the network feed -- about 12:40 or so into the clip, after the CBS ID, there is some dead air that I assume was the break for local ads and ID.

One interesting thing -- about 2/3 through the first bulletin, there appears a small white square in the upper right corner of the screen for a few seconds, disappearing just before the bulletin slide is killed. Is this a signal to the affiliates related to the bulletin, or is it the typical kind of "cue" that came up in network broadcasts back in the day right before a commercial break? (Given the timing, and the fact that the scheduled commercial would have begun just before the end of the bulletin cut-in, I suspect the latter, and that it is unrelated to the bulletin -- probably just more noticeable here because it's over the stark black background of the slide instead of over live video.)

 

[Stanislav]

Just watched Part 2 -- very interesting. Jarring juxtaposition at one point when a new bulletin comes up in the middle of a silly dog food commercial! You can hear Cronkite struggling to make sense of the diverse reports coming in, sometimes misspeaking or stumbling over his words (something you rarely heard him do), and recapping and stretching during lulls when no new information was available. (At times he fills with talk of previous assassination attempts, such as that against Truman in '52, and mentions the assault on Adlai Stevenson in Texas a couple of weeks prior.) It looks like about 20 minutes into the half-hour (1:30-2:00 EST), they just kept the "Bulletin" slide up for good and never went back to ATWT. (It is assumed that by this time the actors were told about the incident and ceased their performance.)

Also, that damn little white square I mentioned in my previous post keeps popping up at random times during the long stretch when the "Bulletin" slide is up -- I'm still curious as to what it signifies.

As 2:00 approaches, he announces a 10-second pause for affiliates to ID themselves, and for all affiliates to join the network, the video briefly going to a CBS "Eye" slide and then black. I believe it is at this point that they began feeding video of Cronkite as well as audio.

I've been wanting a copy of this "as it aired" footage for ages -- kudos to Tim for finding it!!

 

[bk77]

I am curious as to how the then-few indepened stations and even the educational stations back then carried the death of JFK?

Stations like Washington's WTTG, LA's KTLA, NYC's WOR, WPIX and WNEW?
Did they hook up with a network or something? Did they go off the air out of respect?

Several years ago I had a copy of the Washington Post from the Saturday after JFK was killed.
According to the Post, in very very small print it said that both Washington's WETA channel 26 and WFAN channel 14 would be off the air "...out of respect".

 

[Stanislav]

I am curious as to how the then-few indepened stations and even the educational stations back then carried the death of JFK?

Stations like Washington's WTTG, LA's KTLA, NYC's WOR, WPIX and WNEW?
Did they hook up with a network or something? Did they go off the air out of respect?

We've lightly touched on this in previous threads, but there is not much info (it WAS a long time ago, so only the oldsters among us remember). From bits and pieces of what I've read over the years, some did go off the air, others played solemn music, and perhaps some did tap into one of the networks (many indies had network feeds available to have the option of carrying network shows that the affiliates failed to clear). I seem to recall mention of Boston's WGBH carrying a network feed (since there were no commercials for four days, they could safely do so without violating their non-profit ststus.)

I know I was only 5 at the time and, though we lived in the NYC market with several indies, I don't recall any major channel surfing going on to see who was carrying what. The news was so overwhelming that all the family could do was stare at whatever channel was on the TV in stunned silence.

 

[RicoGregg]

I am curious as to how the then-few indepened stations and even the educational stations back then carried the death of JFK?

Stations like Washington's WTTG, LA's KTLA, NYC's WOR, WPIX and WNEW?
Did they hook up with a network or something? Did they go off the air out of respect?

We've lightly touched on this in previous threads, but there is not much info (it WAS a long time ago, so only the oldsters among us remember). From bits and pieces of what I've read over the years, some did go off the air, others played solemn music, and perhaps some did tap into one of the networks (many indies had network feeds available to have the option of carrying network shows that the affiliates failed to clear). I seem to recall mention of Boston's WGBH carrying a network feed (since there were no commercials for four days, they could safely do so without violating their non-profit ststus.)

I know I was only 5 at the time and, though we lived in the NYC market with several indies, I don't recall any major channel surfing going on to see who was carrying what. The news was so overwhelming that all the family could do was stare at whatever channel was on the TV in stunned silence.

I was in 8th grade at the time. Stunned silence just about says it all. At my junior high, once everybody knew, all bets were off. Some of the girls cried hysterically. Guys who didn't like each other and were always insulting each other were completely quiet, and civil, if not nice. We were sent home early, and we got the following Monday off, like everyone else did. We later made up for it during spring break.

I spent that weekend channel surfing. In the L.A. area, we had 4 indie VHF stations, and the 3 network O&Os. I remember at least two of the indies connected to ABC, and inserting their own news people sporadically. I do believe that one indie went with CBS, and the other NBC. A local UHF station in San Bernardino connected with ABC, and announced it in a full page newspaper ad that ran that Saturday and Sunday.

The thing I most remember was the radio stations. All resemblance of normal programming came to a grinding halt. On the Top 40 stations, regular programming was replaced either by some kind of network news coverage, blended with the local news guy reporting local reaction, or by funereal-type music with the regular DJs talking very low-key, doing the required IDs, two an hour in those days, and telling the audience that regular programming would resume the day after the funeral.

It was a shared nationwide massive shock. Only 9-11 came close to equaling it. In a strange way, it was electronic media's wake up call, and perhaps their finest moment.

 

[KeithE4]

I am curious as to how the then-few indepened stations and even the educational stations back then carried the death of JFK?

WTTV Indianapolis carried the ABC feed. Channel 4 still kept a secondary affiliation with the network after it had lost its primary affiliation to WLWI Ch. 13 when that station signed on in 1957. But since WLWI had very poor coverage to the south/southeast parts of the market (Bloomington, Columbus, Bedford), apparently ABC allowed both stations to carry its coverage. Being licensed to Bloomington, WTTV had to cover that part of the Indy market, so ABC News had full market coverage for probably the very first time.

I'm willing to guess that at least some of the NYC, LA, and Chicago (only WGN at the time) stations ran their own coverage. Same goes for Washington's WTTG & Dallas/Ft. Worth (KTVT?) for obvious reasons. There weren't many indies at all in 1963.

 

[ercjncpr]

I am curious as to how the then-few indepened stations and even the educational stations back then carried the death of JFK?

Stations like Washington's WTTG, LA's KTLA, NYC's WOR, WPIX and WNEW?
Did they hook up with a network or something? Did they go off the air out of respect?

Several years ago I had a copy of the Washington Post from the Saturday after JFK was killed.
According to the Post, in very very small print it said that both Washington's WETA channel 26 and WFAN channel 14 would be off the air "...out of respect".

My memory of LA is that KTLA and KTTV went live with news both from them and simulcast with one of the nets. KHJ-TV (Channel 9 which is now KCAL-TV) aired nothing but a slide which was a portrait of the president with the designation "1917-1963" and classical music for the audio.

 

[mleach]

Outside of New York City, Chicago, and LA who HAD indies back then?
I know that Washington, Boston, Denver, Dallas, Norfolk, Milwaukee, Indianapolis, Seattle, Phoenix and San Francisco all had at least one indie in 1963 but did anybody else?

 

[mmb5]

The little white square was a signal a commercial was coming. I have some amount of TV from the 60s and it appears in practically all of them.

 

[fybush]

Outside of New York City, Chicago, and LA who HAD indies back then?
I know that Washington, Boston, Denver, Dallas, Norfolk, Milwaukee, Indianapolis, Seattle, Phoenix and San Francisco all had at least one indie in 1963 but did anybody else?

Boston did not - there was a license for channel 56, but it was inactive, and 38 didn't sign on until 1964. Minneapolis had one (would have been channel 11 at that point), Portland OR (KPTV 12), St. Louis (KPLR 11), Miami (WCIX 6) were all on the air at that point, too.

 

[Stanislav]

The little white square was a signal a commercial was coming. I have some amount of TV from the 60s and it appears in practically all of them.

Yeah, I figured that's what it was. Interesting how it kept flashing over the Bulletin slide long after they had decided not to return to ATWT -- I guess it was pre-programmed to flash whenever there was a scheduled commercial break, even if the actual video being fed had changed.