This is a very useful documentary, but in terms of actual history, it goes too far in its salute to Walter Cronkite and CBS News.
Useful parts: Excellent interviews with people who covered the story, including Bob Schieffer, Dan Rather, Robert MacNeil, and the UPI deskman who took the first report from Merriman Smith.
Too far in its hagiography: Millions of people watched NBC that weekend. (And a fair number of people watched ABC.) The great journalists of NBC News, including Frank McGee, Edwin Newman, David Brinkley, and Chet Huntley, were fully as important to America's perception of this event as Cronkite - perhaps more so. The history of the weekend, in terms of TV coverage, is slowly being written to emphasize Cronkite and exclude NBC; this is bizarre and ahistorical. I will note for the record that Huntley-Brinkley beat Cronkite in the ratings for evening news all through the '60s until Huntley decamped for Montana. I grew up in St. Paul, Minnesota. KSTP (NBC) was our station of choice for viewing during the terrible weekend of November 22-25, 1963.
At some point in the late '60s or early '70s, NBC erased a lot of videotape from the early and mid '60s. (Johnny Carson never forgave them for that.) I wonder if some of the network's coverage of this weekend was wiped; I've never seen, on YouTube, NBC's superlative coverage of the funeral on Monday.
Useful parts: Excellent interviews with people who covered the story, including Bob Schieffer, Dan Rather, Robert MacNeil, and the UPI deskman who took the first report from Merriman Smith.
Too far in its hagiography: Millions of people watched NBC that weekend. (And a fair number of people watched ABC.) The great journalists of NBC News, including Frank McGee, Edwin Newman, David Brinkley, and Chet Huntley, were fully as important to America's perception of this event as Cronkite - perhaps more so. The history of the weekend, in terms of TV coverage, is slowly being written to emphasize Cronkite and exclude NBC; this is bizarre and ahistorical. I will note for the record that Huntley-Brinkley beat Cronkite in the ratings for evening news all through the '60s until Huntley decamped for Montana. I grew up in St. Paul, Minnesota. KSTP (NBC) was our station of choice for viewing during the terrible weekend of November 22-25, 1963.
At some point in the late '60s or early '70s, NBC erased a lot of videotape from the early and mid '60s. (Johnny Carson never forgave them for that.) I wonder if some of the network's coverage of this weekend was wiped; I've never seen, on YouTube, NBC's superlative coverage of the funeral on Monday.
