HISTORY's Moment in Media: JFK's Assassination Ushers in a New Age of Breaking News Television

November 22 1963 60 years ago this month was the fateful day President John F Kennedy was assassinated in a motorcade as it passed the Texas School Book Depository in Dallas That afternoon America watched as stalwart CBS newsman Walter Cronkite famously struggled to maintain his composure as he announced to a shocked nation after breaking into a broadcast of As the World Turns that the president was deadKennedy was killed on a Friday and buried at Arlington National Cemetery on the following Monday and in those four days Cronkite and his colleagues set the template for what majorevent live news coverage would be Television was still a new medium then In 1950 only nine percent of US households owned a TV set but by 1960 90 percent did Kennedy had been the first television president with a natural affinity for the medium But even into his presidency television reporters were still considered unserious the real journalists according to conventional wisdom worked in printBut when the first reports came of a shooting in Dallas by radio for the most part people flocked to their TVs These were the days of just three networks and all three went live with walltowall coverage without any commercial interruption That was then unprecedented and wouldn39t be repeated for such a length of time until after 911quotModern televisionquot a New York Times critic wrote on the 50th anniversary quotwas born on the day John F Kennedy diedquotThe idea of broadcasting from the scene where possible with a studiobased anchor as master of ceremonies was established that weekend But the technology of the day made it more challenging cameras were big bulky and heavy and required connections to heavy wires and power suppliesStill onlocation cameras paid off On the night of November 24 reporters crowded the basement of the Dallas police headquarters to witness the transfer of suspect Lee Harvey Oswald to a more secure county jail When nightclub owner Jack Ruby charged forward and shot Oswald fatally wounding him NBC39s viewers saw Ruby39s shot as it happened as the network had a live camera there CBS wasn39t live but did have equipment on location and broadcast a tape moments later ABC viewers missed it that network had already moved its live equipment to the county jail in anticipation of Oswald39s arrivalOverall viewership numbers that weekend were remarkable According to Nielsen 454 percent of all American homes with televisions were watching at 245 pm Eastern Time on November 22 just after the White House announced the president39s death By 615 pm that day when Lyndon Johnson the new president spoke from the White House 658 percent of all homes with TVs were watching Some 472 of homes with TVs were watching in the moments after Ruby show Oswald and an amazing 81 of all homes with TVs watched as the slain president39s body arrived at Arlington on November 25Today while many of the coverage methods remain the same Americans no longer come together for big moment in the same way and certainly not to just three networksOn the evening of September 11 2001 the biggest modern news event about 80 million people tuned into news broadcasts across four major broadcast networks three major 24hour news networks and assorted other broadcast and cable networksThat was also perhaps the first major event when online news was a factor One analyst reported that general news websites like CNNcom and MSNBCcom had been averaging about 175 million weekly visitors earlier in 2001 but nearly doubled their audience to 345 million weekly visitors during the week of September 11Of course by today39s standards which was still nothing By 2022 CNNcom was averaging 130 million unique visitors each month The New York Times boasted 145 million monthly web visitors for that same year And then there39s all the online sources that aren39t traditional news organizations last year the Pew Research Center found that half of Americans get at least some of their news from social media About a third said they regularly get news from Facebook about a quarter from YouTube and less than 15 percent each from Twitter Instagram and TikTokBut in the same study Pew also found that nearly twothirds of American adults still sometimes or often get their news the way people have since JFK39s day from TVClick the social buttons to share this story with colleagues and friendsThe opinions expressed here are the author39s views and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaVillageorgMyersBizNet

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HISTORY's Moment in Media: JFK's Assassination Ushers in a New Age of Breaking News Television

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HISTORY's Moment in Media: JFK's Assassination Ushers in a New Age of Breaking News Television

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