9. The Kennedy assassination boosted televised news
On November 22, 1963, as CBS was broadcasting a soap opera, Walter Cronkite announced that President John F. Kennedy had been shot in Dallas. The report was made over a slide announcing a special bulletin, as the CBS cameras weren’t ready. Within minutes the three major networks were on the air, and for the next four days broadcast almost exclusively live coverage of events as they transpired. The nation was riveted to its television screens. The newspapers were scooped at every turn as the television networks, relying on their own correspondents and those of their affiliates, presented on ongoing saga. When Jackie Kennedy disembarked from Air Force One, still wearing her blood spattered clothes, the nation saw it live.
Lee Harvey Oswald’s comments to the press were broadcast as he made them, as were the comments of the Dallas Chief of Police. Those Americans not in church on Sunday, November 24, witnessed Jack Ruby shoot Oswald on live television if they were watching NBC, and the chaos which ensued. Although tapes and films of Kennedy’s career were shown, for the most part the networks remained focused on the events as they occurred, and the power of television news was revealed as never before. The coverage of the Kennedy assassination, its aftermath, and the late president’s funeral was watched by 93% of Americans according to Nielsen, and the network news divisions discovered the powerful influence they held over the country.