0:00

On the media is supported by better help.

0:02

When you're feeling your best, you can do great things.

0:04

And working with therapist can help get you

0:06

closer to the most empowered version of yourself

0:09

Betterhelp is convenient, flexible, affordable

0:12

therapy, and entirely online. Visit

0:14

better help dot com slash OTM

0:16

today to get ten percent off your first

0:18

month. This week on the New Yorker radio hour

0:21

novelist, Salman Rusty. He survived

0:23

a brutal attempt on his life last year and

0:25

just published a new book. Solomon Rusty

0:27

joins me next time on the New Yorker

0:29

Radio Hour. Listener

0:38

supported, WNYC

0:41

studios.

0:45

Sometimes, especially if you're

0:48

in or adjacent to our business.

0:50

It's easy to forget that social

0:52

media Thurm and Drung is

0:54

a very recent consequence of

0:56

rather new media. In fact,

0:58

it was only until after the passage of

1:00

the nineteen eighty four Cable

1:02

Act, that Cable began to have

1:05

any kind of impact. Until then,

1:07

for most of us screen watchers, it was

1:09

just the big three networks and maybe

1:11

a couple of syndicated channels, reception

1:14

was variable and going live

1:16

was complicated, costly,

1:19

and rare. Nevertheless,

1:22

after Friday, November twenty

1:24

second nineteen sixty

1:27

three, life coverage

1:29

was required no matter

1:31

the cost. Whenever a president

1:33

left the White House, We first

1:35

aired this piece, one of our favorites

1:37

in two thousand three. In

1:39

it, WNYC's Sarah

1:42

Fishgo recollects those dreadful

1:45

days in November

1:46

when everyone was paralyzed

1:49

in front of our TV screens. Ladies

1:53

and gentlemen,

1:55

conductor Eric Lienstor. Hall,

1:58

Boston, November twenty second nineteen

2:00

sixty three.

2:02

We have a press report over the

2:04

virus that the president

2:06

of the United States has been the victim

2:09

of an assassination.

2:12

If you were alive and over, say,

2:14

five years old in November nineteen

2:16

sixty three, wherever you

2:18

were, you remember it.

2:19

We will play the

2:22

funeral march from day twoteenth,

2:24

that's temporary. The

2:27

nation heard the news over wire

2:29

services, radio, by word-of-mouth,

2:32

public announcement, and most dramatically,

2:34

on television. Television

2:37

took over our lives for what are sometimes

2:39

called those four dark days in Dallas,

2:42

the Friday of the assassination of president

2:44

John f Kennedy and the Saturday, Sunday,

2:47

and Monday that followed. And

2:49

on the next Thursday after that, the

2:51

country huddled around its thanksgiving

2:53

tables struggling to recover, which

2:56

I guess we did. But after that

2:58

November, we would never be the

3:00

same, and neither would TV. It

3:02

it appears as though something has happened in

3:05

the motorcade group, something I repeat has

3:07

happened and the motorcade route.

3:08

Radio was there and wire services

3:10

and newspapers, but it took television exactly

3:13

ten minutes after shots were

3:14

fired. To go on the air that day. Here

3:16

is a bulletin from CBS News.

3:19

In Dallas, Texas, three shots

3:21

were fired at president candidate's motor case.

3:24

That began four days of on air

3:26

improvisation television's first continuous

3:28

coverage of a prolonged,

3:30

painful, breaking news tour. It

3:31

was impossible to sell at once where was

3:34

hit, but bullet wounds in

3:36

governor Conley's chest were had been an

3:38

assassination of the of a president's

3:40

some McKinley at the turn of the century.

3:42

Thomas Doherty is professor of film

3:45

studies at Brandeis University and has

3:47

written about the TV coverage of the Kennedy

3:49

assassination.

3:50

So even without television, this

3:52

would have been uniquely

3:54

disorienting and shocking. With

3:56

television though, it becomes this indelible

3:58

memory for an entire generation. That

4:01

with TV, we can actually experience

4:04

the news and watch it as it's unfolding

4:06

in the same essential moment that

4:09

the news is

4:09

happening. The information that we have is there's

4:11

no time obviously for speculation.

4:13

Remarkably, it had been earlier that very

4:15

far. September nineteen sixty

4:17

three that CBS had expanded its

4:20

nightly newscast to a half hour

4:22

from its previous program of only fifteen

4:24

minutes a night. NBC followed

4:26

soon after. News guys expanding because they

4:28

had to. Reuben Frank was producer of

4:30

the Huntley Brinkley report in the fifties and

4:33

six and went on to be president of

4:35

NBC

4:35

News. And you just couldn't get the news in.

4:37

You know, we had been agitating

4:39

for half hour for a long time. With

4:41

Kennedy, the television president,

4:44

they thought maybe it had a shot. And

4:47

it did. And then that day in Dallas

4:49

came IN QUITE A DIFFERENT TECHNOLOGICAL YEARS.

4:51

Reporter: FELICO

4:53

IS RAVER McNEAL RUSSIA'S PRESENTENCE

4:55

PARTY. THERE WAS A WHOLE WAITING ROOM.

4:57

With swinging doors and had looked inside and

4:59

there were too pay for less than

5:00

now. We're empty.

5:02

Former Anchor now author Robert

5:04

McNeil was in Dallas covering the Kennedy

5:06

Motorcade for NBC. And I grabbed one

5:08

of them and I kept it for the rest of the afternoon.

5:10

Bob, are you there? This is Frank

5:12

McGee. When I phoned from that pace

5:14

found in

5:15

Dallas. They couldn't couldn't

5:17

connect me

5:18

through to air. I were having some

5:20

difficulties with academia. And I would say

5:22

and then began with repeated. The president

5:25

is seriously wounded. Which

5:27

was fine for me because it slowed me

5:28

down. The

5:29

shots was wounded. The president occurred as the

5:31

motorcade. In

5:32

sixty three. But

5:33

running through huge crowding and down. We

5:35

were still to the point

5:37

where a

5:37

camera wade, I don't know, a hundred and

5:40

something pounds. And

5:42

a mobile unit was the

5:44

size of a Santini Brothers truck.

5:46

Rubin Frank. Our remote truck.

5:49

In Dallas broke down,

5:51

not the television part of it, but the

5:54

truck part of it, the engine. So

5:57

NBC for much of that weekend

5:59

was represented by a remote

6:01

truck, this big enormous thing

6:03

BEING TOLD AROUND BY A TOTRA. OBSTOCLES

6:06

TO BE SURE THE FLASH

6:08

APPARENTLY OFFICIAL PRESIDENT

6:10

KENNADY died at

6:12

one

6:12

PM. But by the time the awful truth

6:15

was known, the networks

6:15

have resolved to broadcast continuously

6:18

and remove commercials for the duration. It

6:20

was an instinctive reaction, I think,

6:22

was spontaneous and instinctive. And

6:24

for the first time, there was never any debate

6:27

inside the organization about

6:29

dumping commercials. From

6:31

about two o'clock Friday

6:33

afternoon. We knew

6:35

that you couldn't have

6:36

commercials. Some people on

6:38

the money side start to agitate for going

6:40

back to commercials, and we just throw them out of the

6:42

office. By the end of that first day,

6:44

America was exhausted and transfixed

6:47

six o'clock November twenty

6:48

second. Thomas Daugherty, the cameras

6:50

are there to record the coffin being

6:53

taken off the plane and loaded into a hearse

6:55

and you see this image of Jackie

6:57

Kennedy. You know, her dress

6:59

and the the stockings she's wearing

7:01

are, you know, stained with blood and she's, of

7:03

course, looking utterly shattered. And it seems

7:05

almost this you know, voyeuristic

7:08

intrusion into this very

7:10

private

7:10

moment. The

7:11

Sharah at Macy's Kennedy

7:14

and her family bear. By

7:16

Saturday, a parade of dignitaries was

7:18

filing by the body lying in

7:20

state. There were more details about

7:22

a

7:22

suspect, Lee Harvey Oswald, and

7:24

reporters were struggling with the reality of a

7:26

new president.

7:27

But president Johnson president

7:29

Johnson, I'm sure that many of us have made a

7:31

mistake of all receipts

7:32

received. Nothing but it's prepared TV

7:34

or its viewers. For Sunday.

7:36

A lot of folks that say that it is the

7:38

Sunday event that is truly

7:40

the one that unhinges America

7:42

ever after and that you

7:44

know, this is really when the sixties began.

7:46

It was Sunday morning. Reuben

7:48

Frank. And the president of NBC

7:51

was watching at home along with

7:54

half the country. And he was getting

7:56

bored with what we were covering, and he said,

7:58

switch to something live, he

7:59

said. And the only thing we had live was contented.

8:02

THOSE REALLY THOUGHT IT WAS WORST COVERING. Reporter:

8:04

NBC REPORTER PEDOT WAS

8:07

FOLLOWING THE PRISONER OZEWALT AS HE

8:09

WAS MOVED FROM JAYL TO

8:10

JAYL. THEY SWITCHED THE NERWALT. Yep.

8:12

There is. Leila. He's

8:17

been shot. He's been

8:18

shot. CBS have had its cameras

8:20

running. But they had switched to an essay

8:22

at the time. They insisted finishing

8:25

the essay rather than coming to his life.

8:27

Dan rather was in Dallas covering the

8:29

Texas trip for CBS.

8:30

At a time when I was first

8:33

asking then, calling then screaming come to

8:35

his life. What

8:36

decisions get made? That

8:39

was an unfortunate decision. We turned the

8:42

tape right around and played it, you know,

8:44

immediately so you could

8:44

say, well, maybe what did it not

8:47

do, but

8:48

time. See, he

8:49

was disappointed with the past

8:52

Understate.

8:52

Firecracker rang out. So I He grabbed his

8:55

side and he said -- Oh. --

8:57

Nielsen ratings never even

8:59

approached ever again, you know, the

9:01

the kind of stratosphere that

9:03

they had on on that

9:05

day, literally ninety three

9:07

percent of the American public was via

9:09

television, you know, watching on

9:11

on Sunday.

9:12

Monday, the funeral. You

9:15

didn't need to have people

9:17

nattering on about

9:19

nothing and just gloviating

9:22

to hold the airspace. There

9:25

was enough inherent drama in

9:28

millions of people weeping over their

9:30

television

9:31

sets. What did television

9:34

learn from November nineteen

9:36

sixty three? From then on, the

9:37

presidency, it it

9:38

just took over the

9:41

news. It I by the way, I don't think

9:43

this is peculiar television. I think all news

9:45

media. The White House

9:47

Bureau's coverage

9:48

expanded. Exponentially.

9:50

A lot of people

9:53

felt they had missed the

9:55

biggest story of their lives. And

9:57

from then

9:57

on, nothing the president

10:00

did or does is not covered.

10:02

I think I know before Dallas, I

10:04

had no idea of the power

10:06

of television.

10:07

To move people is a

10:10

shared nation experience.

10:12

Dan, rather. The closest thing I had known

10:14

to it was listening to

10:16

lawsuits on radio. And,

10:19

you know, after rollers came on radio,

10:21

you could go out. Everybody

10:24

had experienced and

10:25

could, you know, could talk about it, but that was

10:27

in radio and when I was a child. At

10:30

the time

10:30

of

10:30

television, I was in a level of

10:33

child. I

10:33

didn't feel My

10:35

own feelings until the day of the funeral.

10:37

Robert

10:37

McNeil. We were

10:38

filming. And a man

10:41

came and sat down and put a

10:43

transistor radio down and it

10:45

happened to be tuned to the funeral in

10:47

Washington at the moment when the

10:49

black watch bag pipe

10:52

band passed. And

10:54

suddenly, all my defenses and

10:56

everything just dissolved and there I was

10:58

sobbing, tears running down my face.

11:01

There it was. And suddenly it

11:03

just all poured out.

11:04

Television and all of us grew

11:07

up those four days among

11:09

those images. It was

11:09

a crisis more fully appreciated

11:12

by watching than by learning

11:14

about. That's what television could and

11:16

can do. Jackie

11:18

Kennedy knew her even that night in

11:20

her bloody skirt. She'd been

11:22

asked by many why she'd chosen not to

11:24

change clothes. No. She

11:26

said, let them see what they've done.

11:29

For on the media,

11:31

I'm Sarah Fisher.

11:42

Thanks for listening to this week's

11:44

midweek podcast. And while I have

11:46

you here, a quick reminder to

11:48

sign up for our newsletter. Holidays

11:50

are coming up and we'll be having some

11:53

OTM gift giveaways. You may

11:55

not want to miss. Thanks

11:57

scale, and happy thanksgiving.