CBS News to Stream Video from Day John F. Kennedy was Assassinated as it Happened

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Kudos to CBSNews.com for streaming video of the kinescope recordings of live coverage of the assassination of John F. Kennedy, a tragedy that occurred 50 years ago today. This rarely seen, historical footage will be streamed beginning at 1:38pm Eastern Time.

I watched a good part of these kinescopes on YouTube last year, and I was just amazed at how Walter Cronkite dealt with information coming off of teletypes and messages transcribed from phone calls. This shows a lot about the technological limitations and other short comings of news coverage in the early 1960s.

I read somewhere that the first 20 minutes of CBS’ live coverage of the Kennedy Assassination was essentially radio coverage, because it took that long for a vacuum-tube-based television camera to warm up before it could actually be used. If I can find a link to that information I will share it.

Update: CBS News released a DVD called As It Happened: JFK Assassination (hosted by Bob Schieffer), which is a condensation of the coverage they streamed on Nov 22-25, 2013. This is probably worth having in your collection if you are a fan of Twentieth Century American History.


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