We Interrupt This Broadcast

It was the darkest nightmare of every parent come to life - and it happened in the land of “It can’t happen here.” The setting was Littleton, Colorado, a comfortably middle-class suburb of Denver, a place where people come to raise a family, and where the arch over a hallway at local Columbine High School is inscribed with the motto: “The finest kids in America pass through these halls.” But on April 20, 1997 - the halls of Columbine suddenly became the scene of a murderous reign of terror. Coverage of the shootings was intensified by the ubiquity of 24-hour cable news, and its constant need to come up with fresh information - often incorrect. The media quickly realized they simply had no protocols for a mass casualty incident of such dimensions.

Broadcast audio courtesy of KOA Radio, Denver, CO, ABC News Video Source, CBS News

Contributors:

• David Bernknopf, Former VP CNN, A founding employee of CNN
• Jayson Luber, Former KOA Radio and KUSA TV Traffic reporter
• Kathy Walker, News Director, KOA Radio, Denver
• Marcy McGinnis, Former Senior Vice President News Coverage, CBS News
• Jerry Bell, KOA NEWS Radio Managing Editor

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She was a princess who never lived happily ever after - and the world loved her for it. Diana Spencer became a global celebrity when she wedded England’s Prince Charles in July 1981. But the fairy tale marriage soon unraveled, and, after no end of adulterous revelations and public separations, finally ended in divorce. But Diana remained a princess in the hearts of her millions of fans - and of the mass media, who faithfully chronicled her every move. Ultimately, it was the pursuit of an image with the highest bounty that lead to her tragic death. The lingering legacy of the death of Princess Di is how media must operate within this ambiguous territory, without overstepping perceived notions of privacy, yet also serving the insatiable appetite of editors and the public.

Broadcast audio licensed from CNN/WarnerMedia, BBC

Contributors:

• David Bernknopf, Former CNN Vice President, News Planning, 1980 – 2001
• Kevin Connolly, BBC on-scene reporter in Paris
• Jim Bittermann, CNN on-scene reporter in Paris
• Patricia Kelly, Former CNN Brussels Bureau Chief
• Marcy McGinnis, Former SVP, Special Event News Coverage, CBS News
• Beth O’Connell, Former Producer of Special Programming at NBC News
• Dickie Arbiter, Former spokesperson for Buckingham Palace

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The first reports from Los Angeles had an all-too familiar ring - a black motorist who had been stopped by police for drunk driving was pulled out of his car and beaten by several white officers. But this time, the entire incident was captured on a bystander’s video camera, then broadcast via television around the world. When the offending officers went on trial, an all-white jury saw things differently. After announcing a deadlock on a single assault charge and acquitting the four police officers, the city erupted in an eerie replay of the Watts riots thirty years before which had left much of Los Angeles’ inner-city community in ruins. It all began with a hand-held video camera and ended with the whole world watching a great city going up in flames. And just how much had television’s wall-to-wall coverage fanned those flames.

Broadcast audio licensed from NBC Radio; KTLA/Nexstar, Inc.

Contributor:

• Bob Brill, Former stringer radio reporter for NBC Radio
• Carl Stein, Former KCBS video journalist
• Mark Coogan, Former KABC-TV reporter
• Warren Cereghino, Former News Director at KTLA TV Los Angeles
• Tony Fote, Video editor at KTLA TV, Los Angeles
• David Bohrman, Former executive producer of ABC’s World News Now

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When Ronald Reagan was elected president in November 1980, he hoped to defy an unusually grim circumstance of that office. In the seven previous even-numbered decades, every U.S. President had died in office - four times from assassin’s bullets. A few months later on March 30, 1981, as President Reagan strolled outside the Washington Hilton Hotel, he nearly met the same fate.

Broadcast audio licensed from ABC News Video Source

Contributors:

• Sam Donaldson, Former Chief White House correspondent, ABC News
• Susan King, Former White House correspondent, ABC News reporter.
• Ross Simpson, Former correspondent, Mutual News
• David Prosperi, Former Assistant Press Secretary to President Ronald Reagan

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It was the finale to a decade of turbulence and upheaval, but this time it was an event through which a nation could put aside its differences and stand together to marvel at the achievement. In 1961, President John F. Kennedy had pledged that before the sixties were over, an American would walk on the moon.

The enormity of the mission aside, one question remained, how to get a television signal 240 thousand miles from the lunar surface onto televisions in living rooms around the globe. Robert Wussler, Walter Cronkite's producer, called it "the world's greatest single broadcast" in television history.

Broadcast audio licensed from CBS News

Contributors:

• Walter Cronkite, Former CBS anchor (Courtesy of the Television Academy Foundation Interviews. See the full interviews at TelevisionAcademy.com/Interviews.)
• Richard Nafzger, Former engineer at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center responsible for getting the television signal from the lunar surface to Earth.
• Danny Epstein - Music director for NBC (Courtesy of the Television Academy Foundation Interviews. See the full interviews at TelevisionAcademy.com/Interviews.)
• James Wall, Former CBS Stage Manager (Courtesy of the Television Academy Foundation Interviews. See the full interviews at TelevisionAcademy.com/Interviews.)
• Mike Russo, Walter Cronkite’s desk assistant
• Joel Banow, Director of the Apollo 11 telecast for CBS News

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He was a man in the prime of life when he traveled to Dallas, Texas in November 1963, on a routine political fence-mending mission to help shore up his chances for re-election as president the following year. At about twenty five minutes past noon on November 22, he was riding in an open convertible with his wife through downtown Dallas, waving to cheering crowds, when the unthinkable occurred - an unforgettable event that would haunt and define the turbulent decade to come.

Broadcast audio licensed from CBS News

Contributors:

• Don Hewitt, Former CBS News producer (Garner Audio Archive)
• Walter Cronkite, Former CBS News anchor (Courtesy of the Television Academy Foundation Interviews. See the full interviews at TelevisionAcademy.com/Interviews.)
• Dan Rather, Former CBS News anchor, KRLD Dallas reporter (Courtesy of the Television Academy Foundation Interviews. See the full interviews at TelevisionAcademy.com/Interviews)
• Gary DeLaune, Former reporter for KLIF Radio
• Robert MacNeill, Former correspondent for NBC News (Courtesy of the Television Academy Foundation Interviews. See the full interviews at TelevisionAcademy.com/Interviews.)   

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It was the biggest overseas military operation in the biggest war in world history - and its best kept secret as well. D Day demonstrated radio’s ability to carry news with clarity and immediacy. And while reporters like Robert Trout, Edward R. Murrow, and Richard C. Hottelet became household names, it was the ingenuity of an NBC stringer reporter named Wright Bryan, who finagled his way aboard a flight of paratroopers and became the first to report the landing. 

Contributors:

• Howard K. Smith, correspondent, anchor, and original member of “Murrow’s boys”
• Daniel Schorr, three-time Emmy winning correspondent, Senior News Analyst for National Public Radio, and part of the later generation of “Murrow's Boys.”
• Michael Freedman, Former General Manager of CBS Radio Network News. Professorial Lecturer, GWU School of Media and Public Affairs; Immediate Past President of The National Press Club
• Dr. Michael Biel, Renowned broadcast historian.

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The Hindenburg was an engineering masterpiece, an airship as large and as grand as the Titanic - and as doomed. On May 6, 1937, a young radio reporter named Herbert Morrison was on hand to record the Hindenburg’s arrival at Lakehurst, New Jersey. Instead, Morrison helped radio to broadcast one of modern history’s great disasters, as it suddenly unfolded in all its terrible glory. But even as Morrison’s eyewitness report chronicled the end of one era, it signaled the beginning of another - an age in which electronic media would routinely report shocking events in the moment that they occurred. In addition to the story of the Hindenburg, this serves as a preview of Season 1.

Broadcast audio courtesy of Marc Garabedian, Mark 56 Records

Contributors:

• Herbert Morrison
• Dr. Michael Biel, renowned broadcast historian.
• Mike Freedman, President of National Press Club, Professor at GWU –
• Don Hewitt, former CBS News producer (Garner Audio Archive)
• Aaron Brown, former CNN anchor(Garner Audio Archive)
• John Montone, former reporter for 1010 WINS Radio, New York

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Coming July 20th, 2021

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