How Network TV News Covered the Assassination of JFK

TVC 627.1: From November 2013: A special joint edition of The Sounds of Lost Television and This Week in TV History featuring Phil Gries, Tony Figueroa, and Donna Allen that looks back at how network television news covered the assassination of President John F. Kennedy on Nov. 22, 1963 and the events that followed over the next three days—a seminal moment in U.S. history and in the life of Phil Gries and many other Baby Boomers; a seminal moment in the history of network TV news; and, in many respects, a seminal moment in the history of Phil's company, Archival Television Audio. Phil happened to be home on the afternoon of Friday, Nov. 22, 1963, watching the NBC daytime documentary program Tell Us More on local NBC affiliate WNBC, when a news bulletin read by announcer Don Pardo interrupted regular programming at approximately 1:45pm ET and announced that President Kennedy had been “cut down by an assassin’s bullet.” However, due to the technical limitations of TV broadcasting at the time, NBC had no tape of either the Pardo bulletin or the opening minutes of its own news coverage. For more than twenty years, those moments were considered lost, until it was discovered circa 1988 that only Phil had the presence of mind to make an audio recording on his own that day while watching television at home.  Want to advertise/sponsor our show? TV Confidential has partnered with AdvertiseCast to handle advertising/sponsorship requests for the podcast edition of our program. They’re great to work with and will help you advertise on our show. Please email [email protected] or click the link below to get started: https://www.advertisecast.com/TVConfidentialAradiotalkshowabout Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices