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T.V. Moments
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The Kennedy/Nixon Debate
If anyone should’ve known the political power of television, it was Nixon. Yet he didn’t fully grasp the importance of his mere appearance when he met rival John F. Kennedy on September 16, 1960, in the first televised presidential debate. Those who listened on the radio thought Nixon had won. But on television,
the poised, handsome, and well-rested Kennedy was the clear winner. Photo by: Wikipedia -
Walter Cronkite announces death of JFK
Cronkite was also at the anchor desk on November 22, 1963, when President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas. CBS interrupted As the World Turns for Cronkite’s announcement, taken from a UPI report, that three shots had been fired at the Kennedy motorcade. A little over an hour later, at 2:38p.m., Cronkite appeared to deliver the news. Photo from: Dallas Artist Channel -
Walter Cronkite Denounces Vietnam War
Vietnam was the first “television war,” 16mm news cameras bringing back footage of troops on the ground
and bloodshed in the field. And early on, CBS Evening News anchor and “most trusted man in America”
Walter Cronkite had been a supporter, going to Saigon and visiting both high-ranking generals and troops
on the front line. But as the network began airing reports critical of operations there, Cronkite felt his
opinion shifting. Photo From: Wikipedia -
Apollo 11 Moon Landing
Cameras on board the Apollo 11 captured this highlight of human achievements — and beamed it to a spellbound world’s televisions. Photo from: The Telegraph -
Richard Nixon Resigns
But Nixon would suffer one more defeat in the glare of the television lens. The cover-up following a break-in
at the Democratic campaign headquarters in the Watergate hotel was such a small story that it didn’t even
jeopardize Nixon’s re-election in November of 1972. But by the following year, the Watergate hearings —
broadcast daily on by the networks — made it clear that the conspiracy extended all the way to the Oval
Office. Photo by: Biography.com -
Roots
The power of the medium to both educate and entertain has seldom been as well employed as in 1977,
when Alex Haley’s book-length exploration of slavery and his own family tree was adapted into the 12-hour TV movie Roots. Aired over consecutive nights and giving birth to the “mini-series,” Roots was a gamble
for ABC, which aired it in the week before “sweeps” to prevent their experiment from damaging ratings. Photo by: IMDb -
The Fall of the Berlin Wall
“Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall,” commanded Ronald Reagan in June of 1987, and two years later,
the job was done. Gorbachev’s radical notions of perestroika and glasnost changed thinking in the Eastern
Bloc, and in 1989, after months of protests, the East German government unexpectedly opened up the
lines of free travel between East and West Germany. Photo by: The History Channel Website -
The O.J. Simpson Chase
On a June night in 1995, nearly 95 million viewers tuned in to watch the weirdest goddamn car chase in history. It wasn’t really a chase: a fleet of LAPD cruisers followed a white Bronco ever so-slowly down Interstate 5. Inside was former football star O.J. Simpson and his friend Al Cowlings. Simpson’s ex-wife Nicole Brown and her friend Ron Goldman had been killed three days earlier; charged with the double murder, Simpson was to turn himself in earlier that day. He didn’t. Photo by: youtube -
The September 11th Attacks
The morning news shows were winding down on that Tuesday morning in September when reports came in to their control rooms: a plane had hit the World Trade Center. Photo from: One Marine's View -
Hurricane Katrina
Severe weather coverage has, by now, become a series of visual cues: breaking waves, heavy rains, on-the-scene reporters braving the forces in network windbreakers. But Katrina became more than just a weather story, as New Orleans’ levees broke, thousands of residents pleaded for help from news cameras,
and reporters on the ground relayed stories of heartbreak and fear from the streets, the roofs, and the New Orleans Superdome. Photo From: The History Channel Website
