NBC RADIO NETWORK "HOTLINE" BULLETINS FROM NOVEMBER 22, 1963

ALSO SEE:
JFK-Assassinati...

[@MrJoeybabe25]

One of the amazing things is that the network would cut-away from this monumental story.
They were not prepared for this. Afterwards they would be.

[@freeguy77]

CBS (that I was watching at that moment), famously cut-away from Cronkite's audio-only report with a black screen (white type saying: "CBS News BULLETIN") reporting on the CBS-tv network, returning to their soap "As the World Turns." Unbelievable! After reporting the President "has been SERIOUSLY wounded by this shooting."

[@jesselockhart1230]

Talk ups were not intended to be heard over the air, but gave local stations a standby to switchover.

[@moboutmen]

That alert tone is chilling.

[@pault.backes7565]

I agree

[@NxDoyle]

The reporting and broadcasting on this day was exemplary.

[@delawareweatherguy8893]

McNeil does some amazing reporting. He doesn't get emotional. He just reports the "Facts" as he knew them. And he wasn't the first one to get the news out. I think it was some other guy from UPI. McNeil said he called the station and someone put him on hold but never came back to the phone. David Brinkley said they tracked down the person the next day and fired him due to the urgency of the news.

[@freeguy77]

Merriman Smith (UPI) got to an open phone first and their teletype machine first printed the news to the newsrooms in Washington and New York.

[@brianarbenz7206]

@@freeguy77 Smith had a mobile phone with him in the car behind the president's car. UPI and AP alternated daily which wire service got to carry the phone, and that happened to be Smith's day. The AP reporter in the car tried to yank the phone from him after Smith had dictated about five or six words.
I was five then. Later in life, I covered news during stints with AP and UPI. The rivalry was still alive, but less intense.

[@freeguy77]

@@brianarbenz7206 I had not followed the details that I read about many years (decades) ago on Merriman Smith first getting to a phone and reporting the shots fired at Kennedy's motorcade in downtown Dallas. I always thought he was the first to get to a pay phone booth to call-in the breaking news to the world. Thanks for filling us in on that one part out of thousands of pieces of news on that turning point event. It has changed who got to be president, and U.S.-World history ever since, from #36 to #46. Hardly any of them would have become president and facing the problems they did when elected, except by that tragic coup d'etat, by #36, and his key allies in government that he enjoyed for over 2 decades in government as VP-Senator/Majority Leader, and starting as a Rep.

[@kpyng]

@@brianarbenz7206 Bob Clark of ABC was also in the car acting as a pool reporter for the three TV networks at the time. He would later witness the assassination of Robert Kennedy as well...

[@brianarbenz7206]

@@kpyng My goodness. I'd be ready to hang it up after two such events.

[@delawareweatherguy8893]

Very cool. It's amazing how all these records are available. I've listened to tons of them. And they are pretty much all the same, with the same information. The only things that differ are some stations had more reporters there so they had more exact access.

[@xhawk04]

It must’ve been so frightening to go through that day. You hear that news and then they go to some random music until they break in again.

[@1959HT]

ABC 12:36 / WLW 12:37/ KLIF 12:38 / CBS TV 12:40/ NBC Radio 12:42 / CBS Radio 12:43 / ABC TV 12:45 / NBC TV 12:45

[@moboutmen]

I believe ABC was 1st with a radio report. The last time radio would beat TV on a major event.

[@TheBrooklynbodine]

Correct, ABC was 1st.

[@jamesslick4790]

@@TheBrooklynbodine CBS and NBC were more focused on TV by then but ABC still had one hell of a radio news organization then.

[@TheBrooklynbodine]

@@jamesslick4790 In the '70s, CBS built up its radio operation with news and sports. For instance, they'd do selected regular-season MLB games plus the post-season. Ditto for their NFL coverage.

[@delawareweatherguy8893]

I think NBC had the best coverage other than CBS and Cronkite. They had three reporters on TV while having a field of reporters. CBS had Dan Rather who was so morose. He never changed. And if you listen to each report it gets graver and graver with Kennedy's condition. He was dead when the priests were called in. Jackie asked for them. They just wanted to wait until he had the Last Rites. Then it was officially announced.

[@marksymbala3454]

Why don't people care for rather?

[@1959HT]

ABC Radio was the first to break the news at 12:37 CST

[@marksymbala3454]

@@1959HT 12:36

[@jeffhartman7000]

@@marksymbala3454 Some of it is probably personality; for me it’s his somewhat reckless approach to getting facts right. Much of what he reported over the course of this story was incorrect, and ended up fueling insane conspiracy theories.

[@freeguy77]

This is the first time I heard a first report not specifically saying THREE shots fired. "Several" (by Robert MacNeil), indicates to most people at least 4 or more, not 1 to 3. Three was the specified number that Cronkite reported on CBS TV, that I and millions saw the black box on the screen, and heard his voice within 5 to 8 minutes after 1:30pm (ET) / 12:30pm CT.

[@freeguy77]

Robert MacNeil made an error, labeling (Ralph) Yarborough as a Congressman instead of a Senator.

[@michaelj.richard8353]

22 November 1963

[@lizf2400]

Any idea who the announcer is ?

[@marksymbala1193]

Liz F Tony kubek

[@dallasheltzell]

The Yankee baseball player? Was he working at NBC -- or maybe WNBC-660 radio -- during the offseason? I can't find anything in his Wikipedia entry about him being involved in broadcasting until he retired from baseball in 1965.
Whoever the young man was, he certainly was audibly shaken by reading that AP flash.

[@marksymbala3454]

@@dallasheltzell he also worked with Joe gargiola

[@1959HT]

It wasn’t Kubek

[@andyrose5616]

The anchor at 6:05 is Peter Hackes, who later had a small role in the movie Broadcast News.
ua-cam.com/video/1ATJhCIeaqo/v-deo.html

[@katherinecollins1876]

You know to hide this for 50 years no one could know what happeed but mostly his chidren and wife beautiful Jackie were alive I never got that you hlde for 50 years tell me why...his children should have been told!! Tell us why.?????

[@randybargar4916]

Note the first report by McNeil says "several shots were fired"..

[@matta7826]

Randy Bargar yes , and he was there. So he should know.

[@lenr7137]

Yep, though the exact quantity that is meant to be inferred when using the category of "several" is notoriously subjective. That plus the eyewitness reports of a gun being removed from a window and the AP reporter specifying 3 shots tilts the preponderance of the evidence, at least in this short collection of bulletins, toward a single shooter.

[@bobtaylor170]

"Several" means three or more.

[@freeguy77]

@@bobtaylor170 I know there were more: one bullet hit the front windshield, leaving a telltale crack in it. Not reported but there is photographic evidence of it. Another one is the fact that Gov. Connelly himself denied for the next 29 years of his life, he was hit by a separate shot. One missed the limo, hitting a curb, a piece of it striking James Tague, a witness standing far away. The only other person wounded besides Kennedy and Connelly. A minimum of six shots fired, and could be as many as eight. The initial report of three was a frame-up. The first Warren Commission theory was to say TWO shots, but when Tague was wounded by the miss, the WC had to come up with three and staff attorney Arlen Specter invented the nonsensical, impossible. (by the angle and positioning of the men and the downward bullet angle) "magic bullet THEORY." Dr Malcolm Perry at Parkland Hospital also destroyed the "single shooter THEORY" by his initial reporting the small-entry THROAT wound (obviously, a FRONTal shot) and using the small hole to insert his tracheotomy tube there in helping Kennedy to breathe. Other doctors and nurses saw the huge hole in the rear of Kennedy's head, further proof of a FRONT shooter, so it could not be Oswald in the rear! He shot nobody that day, "a patsy" in his own words on what he was and denying the lie he "desired publicity" in saying that plus, "I didn't shoot anybody, no sir" to newsmen in that famous late-night news conference.

[@TheBrooklynbodine]

I don't know how I ever got to thinking it, but to me "several" and "many" were the same. The dictionary defines "several" as "more than two, but fewer than many." I have trouble defining "many" myself. I guess it has differing meanings depending on what I'm talking about. For example, my dad had six brothers, which I guess would qualify as "many."

[@katherinecollins1876]

Who killed him I would like to know we know it was not Oswald was it Johnson?? Many questions!!!

[@hayseed5467]

Colonel Mustard in the conservatory with a lead pipe.

[@bobtaylor170]

@@hayseed5467 , good one!

[@jb-vb8un]

" we KNOW .... not Oswald " - - hilarious

[@brianarbenz7206]

I trust people who use punctuation.