Principles of Journalism, class recap #2 - Sep 18th

This week was the first week that we had a student presentation. The topic was about the John F. Kennedy assassination and how the story was told and covered in the news.

The group started off by informing us that news as we know it today was first marketed and distributed as early as 59 BC in Rome known as the  "ACTA DIURNA" translated to mean The Daily Events. The first TV news broadcast that was of any real notice by the public was coverage of the Pearl Harbor attacks. But it still went fairly unviewed due to the availability of television sets to the average American etc. It wasn't till the Assassination of the president, John F. Kennedy which was televised that this new form of news sharing really take off. It was the first real event that a the nation could share in the combined experience together. By tuning into the televised event, rebroadcast, and follow up stories the general audience felt united and were amazed by the immediacy and detail of the news  that made the horrific act feel all that much more real. People we glued to their television sets for days in morning and panic watching as they were fed constant updates as  to the condition of the president and the attempts to find the perpetrator and bringing him to justice. Rules were not yet established about content that was appropriate to share over the air and the actual bullets could clearly be seen hitting their target in the chest of the president and later with a mist of red blood the kill shot hitting his head. It was the first time I had seen the footage and I was amazed at the raw nature of the imagery. I have no doubt of why the American people felt so strongly about the event and how they could be shocked and awed over the new form of news sharing that TV brought to their front rooms. Reporters themselves struggled to keep their composure as to the shock of the what they had just witnessed having no time to personally cope with the situation before they were supposed to report on it.
As a result to the coverage many rules were established in what should/ could be shown over air etc.
One last thing to mention was as interesting tid bit was the tele- type which was basically the twitter of time.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=lDCt7dRndDo

http://www.nbcnewyork.com/jfk-50/NATL-John-F-Kennedy-assassination-in-Popular-Culture-50th-anniversary-222228441.html