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Re-visiting the RFK Assassination (1968)

The June 10, 1968 issue of Broadcasting magazine has a recap of how the radio and TV networks, as well as some local stations, handled the assassination. CBS television coverage of the California primary had ended at 11:13 p.m. Pacific time and the network did not air Kennedy's speech live. KNXT in Los Angeles came on with local coverage of the speech at about 12:05 a.m. When Kennedy finished, Channel 2 cut back to the studio and anchor Jerry Dunphy. Word of a shooting reached KNXT "within seconds" (which would have been about 12:16 or so) and live video of the Ambassador ballroom was put back on the air.

According to the article, "At 12:38 a.m. CBS News came back on the network with bulletin reports. CBS News correspondent Joseph Benti, in New York, reported that Senator Kennedy had been shot. KNXT's live report of the scene at the Ambassador, via correspondent Drinkwater, was broadcast by CBS immediately after the shooting. CBS News took over complete coverage from KNXT at 3:30 a.m."

A few pages later, the report says "In New York, WCBS-TV was carrying a 1958 movie, 'Never Love a Stranger,' ... when CBS News correspondent Joseph Benti broke in with the news."

So it's a bit confusing as to who took to the network air first... was it simply raw video from the Ambassador? Or was it Joe Benti, perhaps speaking over a "Special Report" slide initially? Obviously the network had a direct feed from the remote truck that was minus any comment from Jerry Dunphy talking on KNXT. The video as preserved and presented on YouTube seems to have been taken a bit "upstream" from CBS central control.
 
The article, unfortunately, is incorrect on at least one point. The CBS television network DID air RFK's speech live from the Ambassador Hotel, as did NBC and ABC. I own the CBS coverage from start to finish on June the 5th. At 12:04 am, Joseph Benti in New York (Cronkite had left by that point, but returned soon after) was anchoring and threw it to Drinkwater at the Ambassador. During the speech, the graphic "Live from Kennedy Headquarters" was overlayed on the screen for a moment. After the speech, CBS stayed with the live feed from the Ambassador for quite some time before Benti again cut in from New York and the coverage continued from there. Having said that, when I purchased the tape in 1996, CBS did not say wether this was a west coast feed, east coast feed or what. It's possible that those watching in the west (not in L.A.) saw something different than those in Boston or New York were watching...but at least for some viewers, the CBS network was carrying the RFK speech and aftermath live.
 
Here's my impression.....CBS was airing the victory speech live, but not all affiliates were carrying it (especially in the East, where given the hour, many stations may well have already signed off for the night). After Drinkwater more or less signed off after the speech, the remote feed continued to be monitored and taped, and as I've theorized before, Drinkwater was probably tasked with hanging out for a while to perhaps grab a few interviews while the feed was still available, for use on newscasts later that day, and most, if not all, CBS stations were not relaying it live at that point -- essentially once Drinkwater signed off, the feed was considered to be closed-circuit, and not for broadcast. (As the article points out, even NYC flagship WCBS had apparently rejoined their regular all-night local movie schedule by then.) Once the shooting occurred, KNXT (as stated in the article) rejoined the Ambassador feed quickly, but as they were local to the incident and covering it themselves (and probably supplying the facilities and personnel for the feed), they were more aware of what was happening.

If you look at the first 15-20 minutes after the shooting, it certainly doesn't seem like Drinkwater believes he is still being broadcast live -- he is not addressing the viewing audience at all, and is just trying to locate witnesses and get some definitive information. It is probably not until around the time Benti came back on the air that most affiliates rejoined the coverage, thus the article's reference to Benti more or less "breaking the news" at 12:38 PT even though those few watching the raw feed already knew Kennedy had been shot.
 
Makes sense to me. Makes me wonder which affiliates did carry the live CBS feed, and which did not, as the network never left the air after their special report, anchored by Benti, began at 12 midnight PST.
 
IIRC (and I read this somewhere) CBS went off the air MUCH earlier than NBC and ABC because they had a different method of projecting winners and as a result they had already declared RFK the winner of the California Primary. ABC and NBC had not done so and still hadn't by the time of RFK's speech
 
It was not Eddie Barker who referred to Oswald on-air as Lee "Harold" Oswald. That was Bob Huffaker of KRLD-TV who was the man on the scene in the basement when Oswald was shot.
 
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