David Von Pein: 'WFAA-TV News- JFK Assassination First Coverage'

Source:David Von Pein- The 1963 JFK assassination in Dallas, Texas.

"Assassination of John F. Kennedy, mortal shooting of John F. Kennedy, the 35th president of the United States, as he rode in a motorcade in Dallas, Texas, on November 22, 1963. His accused killer was Lee Harvey Oswald, a former U.S. Marine who had embraced Marxism and defected for a time to the Soviet Union. Oswald never stood trial for murder, because, while being transferred after having been taken into custody, he was shot and killed by Jack Ruby, a distraught Dallas nightclub owner."

From Britannica  

“8-and-a-half hours of WFAA-TV’s live coverage of the events surrounding President John F. Kennedy’s assassination and the subsequent murder of JFK’s killer, Lee Harvey Oswald, two days later.

WFAA (Channel 8) was the ABC-TV affiliate in Dallas, Texas, in 1963. A considerable amount of video footage from the ABC Television Network in New York is also included in this video series.

Part 1 begins at approximately 12:45 PM (Central Time) on Friday, November 22, 1963, which was about 15 minutes after the President of the United States, John F. Kennedy, had been shot in downtown Dallas, Texas.

Local Dallas station WFAA-TV was airing “The Julie Benell Show”, a regular midday program, when WFAA’s Program Director Jay Watson interrupted with a report about the shooting — “About 10 or 15 minutes ago, a tragic thing, from all indications at this point, has happened in the city of Dallas…”.

Watson, who was himself a witness to the assassination in Dealey Plaza, talks with some of the eyewitnesses to the shooting within minutes of the shots being fired, such as Bill and Gayle Newman (whom Watson repeatedly refers to as the “Nunnallys” throughout the early afternoon). Abraham Zapruder, who filmed the assassination with his home movie camera, was also interviewed live on the air by Watson.”

From David Von Pein

I saw a documentary about the JFK assassination about three years ago. I’ve seen several documentaries about the JFK assassination before. Most of them have been conspiracy theories relating to other people being involved in this 1963 assassination of a United States President. Ranging from the Italian Mafia being involved in it, because of U.S. Attorney General Bobby Kennedy’s involvement in trying to bring down organized crime in America.

I’ve heard some warped, leftist conspiracy theories in my time, but perhaps the craziest being that the CIA and U.S. Military was involved in the JFK assassination, because they didn’t like President Kennedy’s national security policy. Another warped conspiracy theory I’ve heard so far was that Vice President Lyndon Johnson ordered this assassination, because of how badly he wanted to be President. There’s no credible evidence to any of these conspiracy theories that I’ve seen, except for the organized crime connection. And in LBJ’s case, no evidence at all, but the documentary about the JFK assassination that I saw on the History Channel, wasn’t a conspiracy theory at all and was much different.

Because it was about the media coverage of the JFK assassination, with limited commercial interruptions and about three hours long, with no outside commentary. They just showed the media coverage of the JFK assassination from 1963, up till the JFK movie from 1991. What made this media coverage more interesting was that it was the first ever of a U.S. presidential assassination that was broadcasted live on TV. So all the TV news anchors and reporters who were reporting this story, were covering something for the very first time not only in their careers, but in American history.

With no precedent to fall back on. All they really had was their knowledge of how to cover big stories and what you saw were people who were doing a very good job. Under heavy pressure and having to do it live, with no retakes and you got to see some of these people as they were actually were. How they actually react on live TV. With CBS News anchor Walter Cronkite actually choking up during a CBS Special Report reporting that President Kennedy was dead. Which was made this JFK documentary even better because of how clever and unique it was.

I liked this documentary of the JFK assassination so much that I recorded on DVD the first time I saw it. Because the preview of it looked so good and with Jack Kennedy being a political hero of mine. I expected I would want to see it again and again which I have. You even get to see things like Jack Ruby killing Lee Oswald as it happen and coverage of the 1978 U.S. House hearing on the JFK assassination and is something that anyone whose interested in this story should check out.  

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