JFK Anniversary Tainted by Poor News Reporting

[RFKJrNews]

HAD ANOTHER "HOLY CRAP!" MOMENT...

While browsing through the various and sundry news reports marking the 45th anniversary of the JFK Assassination yesterday, I was struck by one strange but nonetheless glaring error which was reported by several major news organizations around the globe. From a curiously uncited wire service report:

"It was 45 years ago today that President John F. Kennedy was shot and killed as he rode in an open limousine in a motorcade through downtown Dallas.

The gunshots rang out shortly before noon as crowds lining the street watched in horror as the president slumped over in the backseat of his limousine, with fatal wounds to his head and neck."...

Okay , now take a closer look at the second paragraph. Anything jump out at you? (OK, besides the fact that the entire paragraph is one big sloppy run-on sentence.)

The wire copy reports that shots rang out “just before noon.” As anyone who has ever read a history book knows, President Kennedy was shot at 12:30 p.m. central time.

This wire story was picked up by local, national, and international news outlets around the world yesterday. All of them ran the erroneous text exactly as it appears above. Obviously, not a single copy editor at any of these media organizations who ran the article noticed or corrected the error. Even more troubling is that none of their readers or viewers did, either. (Or, if they did notice and complain, their comments and letters to the editor were censored.)

Even when I tuned in to hear Dan Rather talk about covering the assassination on Mike Huckabee’s primetime weekend FoxNews program, I was appalled to hear this exact same error repeated again during Fox’s top-of-the-hour news break at 8 p.m. eastern. This time from the lacquered lips of weekend newsbunny, Emerson College grad and Emmy-award winning anchor Julie Banderas:

“And on this day in 1963, the people of Dallas, Texas, lined the downtown streets for a glimpse of their young president as his motorcade drove past. President John F. Kennedy rode in the back of an open limousine, waving and smiling to the throng. Then, just before noon, the smiles in Dealey Plaza turned to horror as shots rang out…”

Oh, for heaven’s sake, I muttered to myself, can’t they even be bothered to get the basic facts straight on the 45th anniversary of Kennedy’s assassination, when the whole world is watching?

In any murder case — certainly in the most hotly-debated murder case of the 20th century — 30 minutes makes a huge difference. Had shots rang out “just before noon” as erroneously reported, the president would have been assassinated while deplaning Air Force One. (Kennedy’s plane touched down at Dallas Love Field just before noon.) The only motorcade in Dallas that day would have been the one rushing him immediately to the nearest hospital. He would have been pronounced dead by 12:30 p.m., and history would have been written very differently.

Yeah, in a parallel universe. The one inhabited by lazy wire service writers who make up alternate versions of history out of thin air. (Because there is not an encyclopedia in the world which reports JFK’s murder as having taken place before noon.) The fantasy world populated by copy editors at mainstream media outlets worldwide who are apparently too stupid (or at the least mentally-challenged) to fact-check a story. The universe filled with attractive talking heads (”anchor” is too complimentary a word for them) who are too dense and self-absorbed to know or even care if the story they are reading to millions of viewers is accurate.

JOURNALISM 101 CLASS IS NOW IN SESSION
The first thing an aspiring reporter learns in journalism school is that every story must answer five questions: WHO, WHAT, WHEN, WHERE, AND WHY? (Also known as “the five W’s”) The questions must be addressed in the first two paragraphs of the story (known as the “lede”), and the information must be accurate, based on information provided by at least two reliable sources.

In the case of President Kennedy’s assassination, accurate information which answers the first four questions is readily available from any library, history book, encyclopedia, newspaper archive, or a basic web search. This stuff ain’t rocket science. Any ten year-old taking a history exam could gather the following:

WHO? — President John F. Kennedy

WHAT? — Assassination

WHEN? — November 22, 1963 at 12:30 p.m.

WHERE? — In a motorcade traveling down Elm Street in Dealey Plaza, Dallas, Texas.

Now, as for that tricky fifth question — WHY? — that’s the rest of your story.

WHY is the question the American people still want answered, even after 45 years.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like we’ll be able to count on our press to find the answer to that one (a notion that certainly wouldn’t surprise longtime JFK conspiracy researchers). After all, if they can’t even give us an accurate account of WHEN the president was killed (a fact of the case which has never been in dispute), how could we expect them to do any serious investigation into WHY the president was killed?

(SNIP)...

Story continues at:

http://rfkjrforpresident.com/2008/11/23/op-ed-jfk-anniversary-tainted-by-poor-news-reporting/

[MikeNearMcChord]

1. Wait about five years, then it will be everywhere.

The 50th anniversary will be a big media event.

[RFKJrNews]

2. Oooh, that's a scary thought

If they can’t even get the basic facts straight about JFK’s assassination on the 45th anniversary, this does not bode well for what the coverage is going to look like on the 50th anniversary. Or the 150th.

Heaven help us.

[RFKJrNews]

3. Go Back To Sleep, America...We'll wake you in 5 Years

So…let me get this straight: a bullet, fired “just before noon” hovers in midair for 30 minutes before hitting its’ target at 12:30 p.m.? Wow, that really IS one hell of a magic bullet!

(And you thought all that zigging and zagging it could do was impressive!)

[LibDemAlways]

4. Last night a PBS channel out of Orange County, CA ran

what looked to be a few years old documentary narrated by Jane Pauley about how the media covered the events as they unfolded. What struck me was that the writers simply accepted the Warren Commission version of events, branding Oswald as a disgrunted ex-Marine and Ruby as a man who killed Oswald because he felt bad for Jackie. They made no attempt at all to provide any historical perspective or suggestion of any controversy surrounding those findings.

However, they did show a few film clips of the flat out wrong reporting that happened that day - Johnson had suffered a heart attack, Jackie had been wounded. Looks like the reporting was sloppy then, and isn't any better today.

[Berry Cool]

6. I don't hold media outlets responsible for the initial confused misreporting of an event

as it happens. It's the rough first draft of history, after all. It can be very hard to separate fact from fiction at such a time.

One of the things I'll always remember about 9/11 is the rumors that were flying around--things like bombs going off at the State Department and so on. None of this stuff turned out to be true. This is not even getting into tinfoil hat territory--it's just saying that a lot of stuff was initially reported that turned out not to be true after all, but it was all presented on the initial news reports without much filtering out of fact from rumor. Although it was not reported as fact, it was obviously reported as rumor ("We are hearing that...we will attempt to confirm this," which pretty much covers a multitude of sins--then people who hear it take it up and report it as fact--"They said on TV that...")

[Berry Cool]

5. There are probably a lot of people who know damn well that JFK was shot on 11/22/63

but couldn't tell you off the top of their heads at exactly what hour it took place or exactly what hour he died. This doesn't make them ignorant or uneducated.

However, that's no excuse for a journalist getting it wrong, and an editor not noting it and correcting it.

A responsible editor should have red-flagged every fact cited in the article and checked it to make sure it was accurate. Even if the editor didn't look at the time as written and think "Oh, that's blatantly wrong"--it should have been checked, because it's presented as fact, and facts need to be checked as part of an editor's job.

Sadly, media outlets are laying off personnel, and trying to do too much with too few. As a result, accuracy falls by the wayside and mistakes slip through the cracks, even embarrassing ones.

[RFKJrNews]

7. Exactly right. This stuff ain't rocket science, y'know

As someone who has worked as a reporter, editor and anchor in mainstream media newsrooms for more than 20 years, let me tell you how long it would take to fact-check the time of President Kennedy's assassination:

Exactly one minute.

30 seconds to Google "JFK Assassination" and read the first paragraph on Wikipedia.
30 seconds to cross-reference that fact in any encyclopedia.

And bah-da-bing, You're done!

Then you can get back to reporting the REAL news of the day...like why did Ashlee Simpson name her baby "Bronx?"

Inquiring minds want to know, right?

http://www.abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/FallConcert/popup?id=3432207

[RFKJrNews]

8. Since we're making up our own versions of history now...

In my parallel universe, this is the way it SHOULD have happened on 11-22-63: