When the News Went Live: Dallas 1963

Book TV Reruns "When the News Went Live" Texas Book Festival’s Author Panel with Dan Rather from Texas House Chamber

Program Also Available on DVD

C-SPAN-2's Book TV will rebroadcast When the News Went Live's Texas Book Festival author panel, moderated in October 2005 by Dan Rather in the Chamber of the Texas House of Representatives.

This second Book TV appearance of Bob Huffaker, Bill Mercer, George Phenix and Wes Wise is also sold on DVD through C-SPAN. Their vivid and compelling book is approaching its third printing since it was released in autumn 2004.

Reviewers unanimously praise the book for its authority and readability.

CSPAN will announce broadcast rerun times for this program at
http://www.booktv.org/

The program is available on DVD here.

The authors' BookPeople Book TV program is also available here.

 

Wes Wise joins Co-author Bill Mercer in Texas Radio Hall of Fame

Former Dallas mayor Wes Wise, who pioneered baseball play-by-play with Gordon McLendon in the 1940s, will be inducted into the Texas Radio Hall of Fame on November 5. Wise joins his former colleague and co-author Bill Mercer, who has been in the Hall of Fame for several years.

Wise and Mercer, both famous play-by-play announcers, are co-authors of the nationally acclaimed book When the News Went Live: Dallas 1963, written with their old colleagues Bob Huffaker and George Phenix. The book is their compelling first-person account of covering the JFK assassination and its aftermath for CBS and KRLD News. These veteran broadcasters also discuss developments in today's broadcast journalism. The four will be featured at the Texas Book Festival in October, and they have won several regional honors, including Southwest Authors of the Year. The well-received When the News Went Live has been praised by Dan Rather, Jim Lehrer, Bob Schieffer, Walter Cronkite and other top journalists.

In the 1940s and 1950s, Wes Wise was a well-known baseball play-by-play announcer for the nationwide Liberty Broadcasting System. At Ameriquest Field, home of the Texas Rangers, the Legends of the Game Museum features a replica of the radio studio where Wise and Gordon McLendon re-created major league baseball broadcasts. Beside the antique microphone hangs the bat that Wise and the Old Scotsman struck for sound effects to accompany disc recordings of crowd noise. Historic audio of their early re-creations accompanies the radio exhibit, and high on a wall above the museum's entry room, a giant enlarged photo sets the mood for old-time baseball: a panoramic shot that young Wes Wise took from the roof of the old Polo Grounds in 1951 when he was still in the Army.

Wise was Southwest Correspondent for Sports Illustrated, and he wrote for Time and Life. As a journalist, Wise won numerous awards including three Press Club of Dallas "Katies" and the Southwest Journalism Forum award from Southern Methodist University for "continued excellence in journalism." 

Wise was elected Mayor of Dallas in 1971, serving five years in that  office after four as a councilman. He was President of the Texas Municipal League and a board member of the US Conference of Mayors. 

He lives with his wife, Sally, on Cedar Creek Lake and divides time  between there and Dallas, where he remains active in public affairs. 

Wes Wise touched more important developments of the assassination  story than most reporters. The month before Kennedy's ill-fated visit, Wise, as Dallas Press Club president, escorted Adlai Stevenson at the day's press conference before covering that night's fateful attacks upon the UN Ambassador. After capturing the only film of that fiasco, Wise helped federal agents prepare security for JFK's Dallas visit. 

Wise covered the presidential motorcade, played a double role at the  president's aborted luncheon, encountered Jack Ruby the day before he shot Oswald, waited at the county jail for the Oswald transfer that went wrong, and testified for both sides in the Ruby trial. 

In his five years as Dallas' mayor, Wes Wise helped the city overcome  its tarnished reputation.  He not only reported this segment of history; he made some of it himself.

As a reporter, he set records straight; as Dallas' first  independent mayor in decades, he helped the city toward racial equity, guided it through desegregation and the uneasy Sixties, fought to memorialize JFK's life and death, and with support of his fellow Dallasites, pulled the city  up from international disgrace. 

The Texas Radio Hall of Fame induction takes place November 5 at the  Dallas-Addison Marriott Quorum, near the Galleria. Individual tickets are $59. Tables for 10 are $650. The event is open to the public, and tickets are available at www.texasradiohalloffame.com.

Good Review of 'When the News Went Live'

Compelling book reveals 'When News Went Live'

Originally published in The Lubbock Avalanche-Journal

August 7, 2005

By William Kerns

I remember when my older sister, Sandy, arrived home early from school
on Nov. 22, 1963, her sobs continuous.

As I tuned my transistor radio to the news and watched television
reports with my family, a nation expressed shock at the assassination
of President John F. Kennedy and events that followed, including the
murder of an accused assassin on live television.

Not until I consumed a fascinating new book called "When the News Went
Live (Dallas 1963)" did I fully appreciate efforts made almost around
the clock by the Dallas newsmen who covered the fates of the president,
Lee Harvey Oswald, Officer J.D. Tippitt and Jack Ruby that week.

The book is a collaborative account by Bob Huffaker, Bill Mercer,
George Phenix and Wes Wise, all employed at the time by KRLD Radio (AM
and FM) and Television.

"When the News Went Live" is more than just a compelling read. It is an
account of incredible from-the-streets reporting of history.

This was, after all, an era when reporters carried 16 mm cameras and
lugged heavy sound equipment. Phenix - a Lubbock native who had been a
reporter less than six weeks - recalls telling a Secret Serviceman at
Love Field, "This is not a gun," referring to his long-barreled mike.

Forget about CNN, the immediacy of videotape or use of satellites.
Newsmen used low-tech equipment and were dependent on instincts,
shoeleather and sources. The book's first-person accounts explain
police decisions while recalling out-of-town reporters who arrived
smelling blood.

Phenix's sixth sense kicked in at the Dallas Trade Mart when he heard
an Air Force officer say he was headed to Parkland Hospital. "Me, too,"
said Phenix, as he jumped into the back seat with the officer.

Mercer recalls why news director Eddie Barker temporarily evicted Dan
Rather and his crew that were using KRLD as headquarters. He also
mentions the difficulty inherent in black-and-white film, saying, "I
had to describe the colors, the messages (covering the assassination
site), the sadness, the tears and choke back my own emotion."

Providing massive visual impact throughout are photographs loaned to
the authors by the Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza, many of which
were published in the Dallas Times Herald.

Each author has a chance to share individual memories, and readers will
appreciate the opportunity to read transcripts of live reports, such as
Huffaker confirming the assassination by saying, "This is one of the
quietest crowds that will ever assemble - the crowd with pity, sorrow,
horror and shame in its heart."

No less moving is Huffaker explaining to us 42 years later, "I hated
having to speak when I felt like weeping."

William Kerns' entertainment reviews and commentary can be heard at
8:15 a.m. Monday through Friday on KLLL (96.3 FM).

"When the News Went Live" -- Coming Appearances

Aug 18 Thurs            DENTON UNT Gateway Center: "Play-by-Play"
                                        An Evening Honoring  Bill Mercer
                                        Building  Believers Banquet. 7:00pm

Sept 8  Thurs           GRANBURY Tarleton State Univ
                                        Langdon Weekend
                                        1pm Langdon Center 308, E.Pearl St. Granbury,  TX

Sept 8 Thurs            ARLINGTON Northeast Reading Group
                                        7:30 pm. Arlington Public Library
                                        NE Branch, 1905  Brown Blvd.

Oct 21-22 Fri-Sat     BRYAN Bob Huffaker at  50th HS Class Reunion

Oct 28-30 Fri-Sun    AUSTIN Texas Book  Festival
                                                 Featuring "When the News Went Live"
                                                  Panel  Presentations.

Nov. 3 Thurs.         DUNCANVILLE
                                            Honored as SW Authors of the Year 
                                            7:00pm Banquet

Nov. 10 Thurs.          COLLEGE STATION
                                            Bob Huffaker at Primetimers
                                            10:30am 30-40min w/Q&A

Nov. 14  Mon            ARLINGTON/FW Tarrant  County College
                                            Presentation 7:30-8:50

Nov. 17  Thurs          DALLAS  Book Club
                                            Church of Transfiguration
                                            Hillcrest N.of LBJ

Nov. 22 Tues            AUBURN, ALABAMA Auburn University
                                            Q&A & Online Chat
            
Aug 18 Thurs            DENTON UNT Gateway Center: "Play-by-Play"
                                            An Evening Honoring  Bill Mercer
                                             Building  Believers Banquet. 7:00pm

Another "Where were you when Kennedy was killed" memory

Another memory from November 22, 1963:

"I remember it was a beautiful, cool fall day with brightly-colored autumn leaves on the ground and on the stone walls lining the sidewalks. I was an undergraduate Journalism major at UNC-Chapel Hill and as I was leaving Aycock dorm I noticed a group of students sitting on the steps listening to a radio. Before I could ask what was happening, someone said "President Kennedy's been shot in Dallas." I sat down as well and tried to understand what had happened. We continued to listen to the news as more information emerged and the group continued to sit in stunned, silent disbelief. When it was clear that JFK was dead, we felt an enormous sense of loss. We knew then that Camelot had been sacked by the barbarians and the bright vision we had of the future was irrevocably tarnished without JFK to lead the way."

--Jim Gibbs

Video of Jack Ruby Shooting Oswald

By Bob Huffaker

A while back, News 8 Austin interviewed my buddy and co-author George Phenix and posted his recollections online, along with George's film of Jack Ruby shooting Lee Harvey Oswald. George captured the murder on 16mm film while I stood at his side and broadcast the shooting live for CBS in the basement of Dallas police headquarters. Earlier I had given George a boost so that he could hang his sound mike directly above where the transfer--and ultimately the shooting--would take place.

Our engineer Jim English was behind our live CBS camera, and Phenix was shooting sound-on-film with a big Auricon camera mounted on a unipod that he had to control in the melee that broke out when Ruby lunged and fired. When CBS later replayed George's film in slow motion, they were creating something akin to today's "instant replays," though George had rushed to our newsroom to develop the film before KRLD-TV and CBS could re-run it.

Click here for the inteview and Phenix's archival film footage.

In our book When the News Went Live: Dallas 1963, George wrote about what it was like as he filmed that piece of history:

"Oswald was coming down the hall flanked by big Texas lawmen. It was happening fast. I had Oswald centered in my viewfinder when ka-bam. We were essentially in a cement box and when Ruby's gun went off, it was really loud. My reflexes won over my news judgment and my head jerked up from the viewfinder. The camera lurched on that blasted unipod. Later, I think someone timed it and I regained control in five seconds. But it seemed like an eternity. At one point, I saw a lawman hurdle over a car to get into the fray. The fight was to keep Ruby from squeezing off another round. And the cops won by sheer force of numbers. Lots of brave men jumped into that pile."

The man who hurdled a police car was Sergeant Patrick T. Dean, in charge of basement security that day. He and other officers risked their lives to disarm Ruby.

George Phenix's film and Jim English's live KRLD-TV camera made broadcast history that day.

More Comments: Where were you when Kennedy was killed?

More comments, more memories.  These are all accessible in the comments section on the right-hand side.   However, we felt these shared histories should really be shared by bringing them to the forefront, the mainpage of our blog, instead of tucking them away in the comments section.

Please take a look at all these comments from our readers.   And please keep them coming.

Here's some of the latest postings:

I was 6 years old & in Catholic School. I heard it in school that the President had been shot. I heard when I arrived home that the President had died. My parents and grandparents were "grey" for a couple of weeks. I remember that there were no cartoons on TV for quite a while. Only funerals and memorials... That was just the start, Bobby Kennedy and MLK were soon to follow... In my hometown there were race riots that forced me and a friend to serve every mass at church for two weeks... When I look back, it all started with JFK being murdered... For me, everthing goes back to that time... The bad concept of everything is only an opinion, and right and wrong are not finite, stems from that time... The moral "death spiral" began in 1963...

Posted by: Tom Nieman

I was 13 and in junior high school. For some reason, I was walking in the halls instead of being in class, and the nurse came running out into the hall crying that the president had been killed. Just a few years earlier, I had taken our portable black and white TV to school so we could watch the Kennedy inauguration in class. A few years later I would graduate from high school in the year of Martin Luther KIng, Jr.'s and Bobby Kennedy's assassinations, 1968.

Watching the president's funeral was personal, because the image of the two small children was like a proxy for the funeral my father never had after dying in Korea. The Kennedy children at the time seemed to be standing for me and my brother.

Early in 1964, I would see the Beatles on Ed Sullivan and it was as if things were coming together to make me feel that the world was changing and that it affected me.

Posted by: kulturkritik

Comments: Where were you when Kennedy was killed?

Check out the comments we're getting (all on the left hand side of the blog) regarding George's original post, "Where were you when Kennedy was killed?"

It seems to have struck a nerve with many folks who can never forget where they were the exact moment they heard news.

We'd love to hear all of these stories and we invite our readers to post their comments here.

These two below in particular have very poignant memories:

I was eight years old & in Catholic school. We got the announcement over the PA system. But more amazing then the shock I felt was seeing all these stern nuns sobbing and clinging to each other. I'll never forget it because America changed that day. We lost hope and we lost our ability to believe in dreams. No President since has been able to convey the power of dreams the way Kennedy did. I still miss him.

Posted by: Victoria Campbell

I was 6 years old & in Catholic School. I heard it in school that the President had been shot. I heard when I arrived home that the President had died. My parents and grandparents were "grey" for a couple of weeks. I remember that there were no cartoons on TV for quite a while. Only funerals and memorials... That was just the start, Bobby Kennedy and MLK were soon to follow... In my hometown there were race riots that forced me and a friend to serve every mass at church for two weeks... When I look back, it all started with JFK being murdered... For me, everthing goes back to that time... The bad concept of everything is only an opinion, and right and wrong are not finite, stems from that time... The moral "death spiral" began in 1963...

Posted by: Tom Nieman

Library Journal Review of When the News Went Live

The Library Journal writes:

At the time of President Kennedy's assassination, Huffaker and company were all reporters in the news department of KRLD, CBS's affiliate in Dallas, which had radio and television components. Their account of reporting the events surrounding Kennedy's death goes beyond mere retelling, reflecting on issues such as ethics and duty in the presentation of news.

Unlike today's attempts to choreograph the presentation of events for public consumption, the situation then was much more fluid. As Dan Rather observes in his introduction, "the minutes, hours, and days after President Kennedy was shot provided no ready answers about just what was going on, what would happen next, or what any of it meant."

The bulk of the book is a fast-paced recounting of what they witnessed, accompanied by 43 evocative black-and-white photos . . . . It concludes with two thought-provoking chapters about the business of news and its uncertain future. Recommended for academic and public libraries devoting space to journalism.

By Ari Sigal, Catawba Valley Community College Library, Hickory, NC

 

Where were you when Kennedy was killed?

By George Phenix

At our book signings, strangers come up to tell us where they were and what they were doing. It seems they want to talk about it. That dark day was a tipping point for the entire world and for everybody living in it.

Our account of those terrible days has struck a common nerve. And people want to talk about it. That's cool.

For a time after the assassination, we were a nation united in grief. Much like the aftermath of 9/11. While I hope we never again feel that collective grief, I would hope we could ramp up the "united" part again.

The red state/blue state divide is tearing this nation apart. And the knee-jerk-offs on both sides are either too dumb or too jaded to care. I am really weary of the 24-hour attack cycle from spinmeisters on both sides of the political morass.

This is a bit of a ramble and I'll admit to getting sentimental, but someone recently sent me an email that kinda got to me.

Here goes:

A four-year-old was looking at the baby in the crib and said, "Tell me again what the voice of God sounds like. I'm beginning to forget."

Well, I'm beginning to forget what "united we stand" feels like.