How the Media Covered JFK Assassination When It Happened - Literature review Example

Research Paper Introduction From the day one journalist by the Walter Cronkite announced that President John Fitzgerald Kennedy had been assassinated, the course of the media has witnessed dramatic changes that one would never imagine.1 This tragedy happened over fifty years ago. Though much has changed since then, the fundamental principles of journalism are quite relevant today than they used to during Cronkite’s time. The phone was a rare gadget during Cronkite’s time. The Universal Press International (UPI) machine was the smartphone of the day. One Smith who happened to be in the presidential press pool car grasped the assassination first hand. His was the principle of “get it first, but get it right.” Smith rushed to the office and fed the whole world with the news through the five bells that rang on the recipient UPI machine to indicate the urgency and weight of the message. Walter Cronkite was a close confidant of Smith’s. He knew exactly what Smith meant by the message fed to the world in such a short span of time. Cronkite took to television immediately, putting a break to the ongoing programs. He had to go on audio, as the available camera was slow at loading images. Cronkite became the most trusted person in America at that time.2 From the time of Cronkite, the media has evolved much, and it keeps evolving. Sometimes, important historic events influence media principles of coverage and the same lessons reverberate through to subsequent years. Following Kennedy’s assassination, several events have occurred that paint the picture of changes in media coverage. Specific events within the succeeding ten-year period allude much to this fact. Kennedy’s assassination in 1963 shifted the focus on television coverage of news. Though it is impossible to believe now, concrete evidence suggest that most news anchors aspired to work for newspapers and radio stations compared to television stations before Kennedy was assassinated.3 The television had lost its value as most people perceived it as a medium for entertainment. However, the way in which Kennedy’s assassination was handled depicted the unimaginable power of the television. The television did what the radio and newspapers could not: capturing the incident moment after the other. The recorded films could be played as many times to emphasize the information and to reach everyone who missed previous airings. Live reports straight from the hospital where Kennedy lay were aired each passing minute. Kennedy’s assassin was also aired immediately he was discovered. The television generated many images than the faded photos of televisions. The radio tried, but people could not get the facts in their freshest form. Overall, the age of television news was born at Kennedy’s death. In 1968, Cronkite shifted the opinion of Americans over the Vietnam War. This was another remarkable incident following Kennedy’s. Today, one can receive all kinds of personal opinion coming from all angles in TV channels. Suppose one imagines how the situation was in the 1960s, it can be shocking. Cronkite decided that the Vietnam War could only end in a stalemate. While reporting that news, Cronkite departed from straight news reporting, something that rarely happened. He spoke all he had to say from his heart. He clarified that the war could not be won. Cronkite was later criticized for liberal bias after his death in 2009. Unlike most of today’s reporters, Cronkite was keen at conducting sufficient investigations before delivering to the public his views. In 1974, the newspaper openly brought down President Nixon. The trend of investigations scaled to the top most heights under the works of Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward of the Washington Post. The duo hotly pursued illegal practices in which President Nixon was involved, which eventually led to his resignation following the Watergate investigation. The duo spent many years preparing and scrutinizing sources for validity with the help of the newspaper owner and editors. The film All the President’s Men and its associate book immortalize the duo. The movie and the book reveal the extent to which journalists must go to capture news stories that can shake the world in this century. The film and the book heightened the eagerness of most journalists who saw the worth of indulging in deeper investigations before letting out any reports or news.4 However, the pressures from the political and corporate fronts have always curtailed journalists’ efforts at investigation. In 1979, the hostage crisis in Iran unleashed a new type of news programming in television. America’s history holds a wide range of political crises, though most of these do not involve war. However, the Iran Crisis paralyzed America as everyone’s attention was caught. The Iran militia took hold of 52 Americans in addition to seizing the United States Embassy located in Tehran. Most viewers of the television expressed the need to watch longer coverage of news beyond the usual periods TV stations allocate.5 These pressures forced ABC News to introduce a late-night program to air extra news. This program eventually became the Nightline. Most people take such programs as this for granted these days. CNN was born the year after ABC News introduced its night program. It is evident from CNN coverage how news can be of value at times. Literature Review Boomgaarden and de Vreese extensively look into the link between media coverage of tragic events and the shaping of public opinion. The article goes in-depth into the analysis of tragic situations, most of which are assassinations. The focus of these analyses is to depict how the media approached the situation and to link the same to the manner in which public opinion was shaped. The researchers also covered the Kennedy assassination in detail as one of the largest incidences of assassination ever witnessed in the world’s history. This article is crucial to the topic of this research as it lays firm ground for understanding the different perspectives of assassination and how the media approaches such situations. In turn, this would give an insight into the Kennedy scenario hence facilitating a proper analysis of the trajectory of media development. Culbert’s article is more diplomatic than journalistic. However, there are crucial things that have a bearing to the Kennedy assassination. The article stresses on the weight of propaganda as a means of shaping public opinion, especially propaganda that emanate from the government. The author starts from the point that although many people downplay propaganda as total lies, the same have proven useful in certain incidences when the media have failed to give satisfactory reports. In the Kennedy situation, the media was at its downiest stage, and one could find it hard to rely entirely on media reports. Word of mouth became useful modes of passing on news and information. The author, therefore, emphasizes that propaganda should not be ruled out outright, but should be analyzed with the critical lens before dismissal. Certain propaganda have more than it takes news and media to achieve. The article is relevant for the present study as it relates how propaganda was important during Kennedy’s time to what happens currently in the age of information technology and sophisticated media forms. Knight’s book is so far the best-rated book on Kennedy assassination. It is quite extensive and covers all aspects of the assassination, including the media aspects. This book offers insight to researchers and students who wish to study the American culture and history but at the same time offers resourceful information on the details of media coverage that followed the Kennedy assassination, which is the focus of this study. The book will provide sufficient grounding on the events that transpired during the assassination and how the media responded to them. There can never be a proper discussion of pertinent issues of the topic without a firm foundation of the essentials of the assassination. Therefore, this book is an asset to this research process. Folkerts and Teeter present their exhausting findings on the history of the media in the American society. They trace the media through various events that have occurred in America, including the assassination of Kennedy. This book is quite informative on the role of the media in its entirety. That means even the weakest of media such as traditional and community newspapers are taken into account. The aim of their research was to establish where the voice of the nation lies. They found the answer to be the media. That means that media have a key role to play in disseminating information as at when they occur. How the media has developed overtime in America is another crucial aspect that the authors shed light upon. They studied and compared the trends as from the early 1900s thereby making the subject easier to understand. These comparisons are at the center of this research. Therefore, Folkerts and Teeter’s book will prove quite resourceful. Herskovitz’s article on the Huffington Post is quite illustrative of the events that transpired during Kennedy’s assassination and how the media took part in presenting the information to Americans and the world. The author argued that the assassination incident caused a TV revolution that had never before been witnessed in America’s history. The manner in which the incident was covered through the days reverberated to media coverage in events that followed the assassination. This article sheds more light on the media changes since the Kennedy’s assassination and is resourceful to this study. Barney’s article on San Jose Mercury News is yet another informative article that brings a wealth of insight into the events that transpired following the assassination. It emphasizes on the media developments that have since been witnessed, referring to major events that followed including the Vietnam War and the resignation of President Nixon. The article emphasizes on the need for investigative media for purposes of giving credible information. The author argues that investigations are necessary for the establishment of truthful information. This investigative technique has since been adopted by most journalists thanks to the lessons from the Kennedy assassination. The article, therefore, is essential to this study in tracking the media changes that followed the Kennedy assassination. Briggs and Burke unravel the social history of the media, taking note of the changes that have occurred in terms of internet socialization. The authors dig deeper into the implications of these changes on the society and the dissemination of information. At the center of their argument is the fact that media developments are influencing social knowledge and interactions in a great way. This book has a bearing on the topic as it helps understand the current state of the media and its impact on people. Chun and Keenan make comparison between the old and new forms of media. This book is very useful in this research as it will guide the analysis of the media trends that have taken place since Kennedy’s assassination, relating the same to current practices within the media. The contrast is enough answer to the research question. Without some of the prominent events that occurred and the difficulties experienced in covering the events, there could be little progress in the media. Audah and Covington expand what the efforts of the foregoing authors. They single out all dominant media forms currently, analyzing their application and the impact they have on the dissemination of information. The TV of today, for instance, is different from the TV of Kennedy’s time. These variations are an important point of focus in the current study hence making this book resourceful. McBride and Rosenstiel take journalism to a different level. They note down the recommended ethical practices in the field of journalism. Journalists of today are highly regulated compared to journalists of Kennedy’s time. The differences in ethics help understand why the journalists of Kennedy’s time could do things that current journalists cannot do and vice versa. These differences are crucial to this study and will shed light on the developments that have taken place so far. Pulford, a journalist himself, painta out the picture of the experiences at the field in his career. Understanding journalism as a career and what journalists go through is essential to this research. It will enable a comparison of the life of journalists at Kennedy’s time and the periods that followed. Gidreta expounds on Pulford and the foregoing authors on developments in journalism. He argues that massive changes have taken place in the last couple of decades. There exist regulations now, for instance, that limit journalist accessibility to certain places. The author focuses on the implementation of such policies and the impact they have on journalism as a profession. These facts are crucial for the present study as they contribute to the understanfding of changes that have occurred in the field of news reporting since the time of Kennedy’s assassination. Lastly, Dell’Orto gives a wrap up of the developments in journalism, focusing on America. He relates the changes through time. His trajectory runs from the 1950s to the current digital age. The book will be resourceful in interpreting the changes that have occurred in news reporting throughout the period. Conclusion The literature review above has exhaustive information on the topic under research. The primary resources for this purpose would be the two journal articles and online sources. Knight’s book will be instrumental too as a primary source. The other books will serve as secondary sources to the research. Bibliography Audah, Jabbar and Covington, William. Broadcast, Internet, and TV Media in the Arab World and Small Nations: Studies in Recent Developments. London: Pearson, 2010. 22-108. Barney, Chuck. Kennedy assassination: how it changed TV forever. San Jose Mercury News, 2013. Accessed from http://www.mercurynews.com/entertainment/ci_24557411/kennedy-assassination-how-it-changed-tv-forever Boomgaarden, Hajo G. and De Vreese, Claes. “Real-world Events and Public Opinion Dynamics: Media Coverage and its Impact on Public Reactions to an Assassination.” International Journal of Public Opinion Research, 19.3 (2007): 354-366. Briggs, Asa and Burke, Peter. Social History of the Media: From Gutenberg to the Internet. New York: Routledge, 2010. 45-300. Chun, Wendy and Keenan, Thomas. New Media, Old Media: A History and Theory Reader. New York: Routledge, 2005. 112-401. Culbert, David. “Public Diplomacy and The International History of Mass Media: The USIA, The Kennedy Assassination, and The World.” Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, 30.3 (2010): 421-432. Dell’Orto, Giovanna. American Journalism and International Relations: Foreign Correspondence from the Early Republic to the Digital. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014. 1-290. Folkerts, Jean and Teeter, Dwight. Voices of a Nation: A History of Mass Media in the United States. (5th Edition). London: Pearson, 2008. 15-499. Gidreta, Abdulaziz. Development Journalism: Acceptability and Implementation. London: Cambridge University Press, 2011. 30-88. Herskovitz, Jon. How John F. Kennedy Assassination Changed Media Coverage Forever. The Huffington Post, 2014. Accessed at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/21/jfk-assassination-media-changed_n_4317803.html 2 November 2014. 2 November 2014. Knight, Peter. The Kennedy Assassination. Mississippi: Universal Press of Mississippi, 2007. 1- 160. McBride, Kelly and Rosenstiel, Tom. The New Ethics of Journalism: Principles for the 21st Century. London: CQ Press, 2013. 18-200. Pulford, Cedric. Journalism My Way: An Offbeat Life in the Media. Hoboken: John Willey & Sons, 2012. 105-177. Read More