This article outlines the media coverage after the assassination of John F. Kennedy, the 35th president of the United States, on November 22, 1963 at 12:30pm CST.
The television coverage of the assassination and subsequent state funeral was the first in the television age and was covered live from start to finish, nonstop for 70 hours. Over the four days of the assassination and state funeral, the three television networks, ABC, CBS, and NBC, were on the air 55 to 71 hours non-stop, the longest uninterrupted news event until September 11, 2001 and had a total of over 1,500 staff report on the events.
Breaking the news Locally in Dallas In Dallas, The Rex Jones Show on music station KLIF was interrupted by the first news bulletin at approximately 12:38 p.m. CST. A "bulletin alert" sounder faded in during the song "I Have a Boyfriend" by the Chiffons. The song was stopped and newscaster Gary DeLaune made the first announcement over the bulletin signal:
KBOX reporter Sam Pate, who was on the Stemmons Freeway in a mobile news cruiser at the time of the shooting, covered the scene at Dealey Plaza and at Dallas City Hall with live radio updates. The widely repeated audio clip of Pate breathlessly reporting "It appears as though something has happened in the motorcade route!" is taken from a reenactment recorded several days later.Sam Pate's statement filed in a CIA "JFK Assassination System" form, along with some other information about the recording, dated January 26, 1970. Page found 2022-11-22.Pate's tape was analyzed to see if gunshots could be heard for spectral analysis. "The FBI also informed the Commission that the newsman had stated that most of the tape was not recorded in Dealey Plaza at the time of the assassination, but was recorded in a studio several days later after he had been dismissed by his station, KBOX." Scientific Acoustical Evidence Establishes a High Probability That Two Gunmen Fired at President John F. Kennedy, JFK Assassination Records in the National Archives. Page found 2022-11-22.
Dallas CBS Radio affiliate KRLD concluded the coverage of the presidential party's arrival at Love Field and switched to reporter Bob Huffaker, who was standing at the corner of Main and Akard Streets in the downtown area, just 1/2 mile east of Dealey Plaza. After the president's car passed him, Huffaker continued reporting for several more minutes and was believed to have been on the air as the shooting took place, although shots cannot be heard in the audio coverage. Shortly after KRLD returned to regular programming with the nationally syndicated religious program Back to the Bible, the first reports of the shooting came through CBS Radio. Huffaker was not aware of the developments until he arrived back at the KRLD studio after wrapping up his coverage, and he quickly drove to Parkland Hospital to report the scene outside the emergency entrance.
NBC Radio affiliate WBAP played instrumental music, with interruptions for local bulletins, until NBC Radio's continuous coverage began.
Dallas' ABC television affiliate WFAA was airing a local lifestyle program, The Julie Benell Show. At 12:45 p.m. CST, the station abruptly switched from the prerecorded program to news director Jay Watson, who had been at Dealey Plaza and had heard three shots before running back to the station:
Watson then anchored WFAA's continuous coverage of the tragedy with Jerry Haynes, host of the children's show Mr. Peppermint, including an interview with witnesses Abraham Zapruder and Bill and Gayle Newman.
NBC affiliate WBAP was showing a program called Dateline at the time when the news first broke.
Nationally The first national news bulletin of the shooting was transmitted over the ABC Radio Network at 12:36 p.m. CST/1:36 p.m. EST. The network was airing the Music in the Afternoon program hosted by Dirk Fredericks and Joel Crager, and Doris Day's recording of "Hooray for Hollywood" was playing when newscaster Don Gardiner interrupted with:
At 12:40 p.m. CST/1:40 p.m., CBS became the first television network to report the news, interrupting its live broadcast of the soap opera As the World Turns. A large, black "CBS News Bulletin" slide appeared on-screen while Walter Cronkite, reporting from the CBS Radio flash booth, filed an audio-only report. Cronkite could not immediately appear on the air because there were no active and ready cameras in the CBS newsroom. Television cameras of the era used image orthicon tubes that required approximately 20 minutes of warmup time. Shortly after this, CBS enacted a policy that ensured a camera would be operational at all times for breaking news bulletins. Cronkite announced:
Cronkite broke in with a second bulletin just as As the World Turns, which was still being performed live as nobody had been made aware of the interruptions, was about to return from its mid-show station identification break. The serial was then joined in progress, and during the advertising break that followed CBS broke in one more time with Cronkite updating the audience on what was transpiring. This time, he remained on the air filing reports over the bumper slide until the camera was ready, which happened to coincide with CBS’ station identification break at the top of the 2:00 PM hour; Cronkite then told viewers that the network would briefly pause so all of its affiliates could join the broadcast.
ABC and NBC were not broadcasting nationally at the time of the CBS bulletins, and their affiliate stations were airing their own content. In New York, WABC-TV's first bulletin came from Ed Silverman at 1:42 p.m. EST, interrupting a rerun of The Ann Sothern Show. At the same time of ABC-TV's first bulletin, NBC Radio reported the first of three "Hotline Bulletins", each preceded by a "talk-up alert" that provided all NBC-affiliated stations 30 seconds to join their parent network.
Three minutes later, Don Pardo interrupted WNBC-TV's local rerun of Bachelor Father with the news, announcing: "President Kennedy was shot today just as his motorcade left downtown Dallas. Mrs. Kennedy jumped up and grabbed Mr. Kennedy. She cried 'Oh no!' The motorcade sped on." At 1:53 p.m. EST, NBC broke into local programming with an NBC Network bumper slide followed by coverage anchored by Chet Huntley and Bill Ryan. NBC's camera was not ready and its coverage was limited to audio-only reports. At 1:57 p.m. EST, just as Frank McGee joined the broadcast, NBC began broadcasting the report when its camera became operational. The first few minutes are considered lost, as the network did not begin recording at the start of its coverage, though an audio recording of Pardo's bulletins exists.
Other than for two audio-only bulletins, one following the initial report, ABC did not disrupt its affiliate stations' programming, instead waiting until the network was to return to broadcasting at 2:00 p.m. EST to begin its coverage.
Radio coverage was reported by Don Gardiner (ABC), Allan Jackson (CBS) and (after a top-of-the-hour newscast) Peter Hackes and Edwin Newman (NBC).
Television and radio coverage (from approx. 2:00 to 2:40 p.m. EST)
ABC Providing the reports for ABC Television were Don Goddard, Ron Cochran, and Ed Silverman in New York, Edward P. Morgan in Washington, Bob Clark, who had been riding in the motorcade when Kennedy was shot from Parkland Hospital, and Bill Lord from the Dallas County sheriff's office. As with the other networks, ABC interspersed with their Dallas affiliate WFAA-TV 8 for up-to-date information. Reporting from WFAA were Bob Walker, who had been at Love Field for live coverage of the President's arrival, and Jay Watson, who had remained on the air locally from the time he broke into a local talk show upon his return from Dealey Plaza. They were later joined by Bob Clark upon his arrival from the hospital.
ABC's initial coverage of the incident was very disorganized. Cochran, ABC's primary news anchor, was on his lunch break when word of the assassination attempt first broke and the network had to call him back to the studio. Silverman was the voice accompanying ABC's first bulletin, which lasted for a minute and 55 seconds at approximately 11:53 a.m. CST, and was broadcast during a rerun episode of Father Knows Best that was airing on a majority of the network's affiliates in the Mountain Time Zone at the time. The surviving videotape of ABC's initial bulletins appears to have been recorded by then-affiliate KTVK in Phoenix, Arizona, as it contains the interruption of Father Knows Best. Right after the end of the first bulletin, the episode continued until the conclusion with the Screen Gems logo. During the end credits, William Windom voiced a promo for the upcoming episode of The Farmer's Daughter, titled The Editorial Wheel, which aired the following week as announced later on because of the assassination. After the Screen Gems logo comes a short promo for The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters, voiced by Dan O'Herlihy. After the conclusion of the promo, ABC went to black for several seconds before cutting straight to its large, white "ABC News Bulletin" slide for an estimate 30 seconds before cutting to Goddard.
The first on-camera report was given by Goddard in the network's news studio, which was too far away from the teletype machines. Goddard then moved to the newsroom and was joined by the returning Cochran, and the technical crew began constructing an impromptu news set around them. ABC did not have studio space ready for such an occasion. NBC had a flash studio in its newsroom and CBS' reports came directly from their own newsroom as they had since they launched an evening newscast earlier in 1963. Cochran and Goddard were forced to stand and awkwardly hold microphones and headsets so they could report the information.
In addition to the disorganization in New York, ABC was not able to switch to Dallas to speak to its correspondents. Only one feed was available to them at first, which came from the Dallas Trade Mart and CBS affiliate KRLD reporter Eddie Barker. CBS had earlier aired snippets of Barker's report, but had cut it off to return to its own reporting of the incident before Barker finished. ABC aired the remainder of the report until the end. The reason that ABC was able to air the CBS affiliate's coverage was due to a pool arrangement the three major Dallas stations agreed to for the President's visit. WBAP was responsible for covering the President's visit to Fort Worth and his departure and landing at Love Field, WFAA was assigned to cover the parade through downtown Dallas, and KRLD was set up at the Dallas Trade Mart for the address the President was to give.
At 2:25 p.m. EST, while attempting to switch to Bob Clark in Dallas, ABC Radio reported that Parkland Hospital said President Kennedy was dead, and then stressed that it was unconfirmed. Upon reporting the news, anchor Don Gardiner said this to his audience:
ABC Radio then played an extract from "Candlelight" by Mantovani.
At 2:33 p.m. EST, Cochran reported on ABC Television that the two priests who were called into the hospital to administer the last rites to the President said that he had died from his wounds. Although this was an unconfirmed report, ABC prematurely placed a photo of the President with the words "JOHN F. KENNEDY – 1917–1963" on the screen.
Five minutes later, this photo was again prematurely placed when Cochran received an erroneous report that the President had died at 1:35 p.m. CST when, in fact, he had died at 1:00 p.m. CST. A few minutes following that, Cochran received further information regarding the President's condition and relayed the following to the ABC viewing audience: