Book Review: Bulletins from Dallas: Reporting the JFK Assassination

Before he takes the oath of office, President-elect Donald Trump should read Bill Sanderson’s outstanding book, Bulletins from Dallas, about how the country’s two leading wire services covered President John F. Kennedy’s assassination.  Silicon Valley titans Mark Zuckerberg, Sheryl Sandberg, Larry Page (no relation to this reviewer) and Sergey Brin could stand to read it, too. 

After calling CNN “fake news” last week, Trump could use a tutorial about how reporters go about their jobs.  It’s not always pleasant – it might even take down our most sacred institutions or a favorite person – but that’s how the business operates.  At its best, it covers events and people without fear or favor and always with accuracy, balance and fairness.  Silicon Valley’s leaders could also use the book so they can discern which news is fake and which is real.

In this day and age of fake news websites and, recently, a network news anchor gone rogue, I’m sure it’s difficult to believe that two news wire services, The Associated Press and United Press International, once competed ferociously to not only get the news first but to first get it right.

The physical beating UPI White House Correspondent Merriman Smith took at the hands of his competitor, an AP reporter, is UPI lore and is vividly recounted by Sanderson, a New York Post editor, detailing how President Kennedy’s assassination was reported by the two wire services shortly after shots were fired across Dallas’s Dealey Plaza on Nov. 22, 1963.

Sitting in the front seat of what was called the wire service car, with easy access to its radio phone, Smith quickly called UPI’s Dallas bureau once gunfire rang out, dictating details as the car followed the presidential limousine to Parkland Hospital, where Kennedy died. 

Realizing Smith was hogging the phone, the AP reporter, Jack Bell, punched Smith numerous times to get it back.  His pummeling didn’t work and a story about the shots crossed UPI’s wire before the car carrying the two reporters arrived at the hospital.  There’s even speculation Smith knocked the car’s phone out of order so UPI could maintain its increasing minute by minute lead in reporting the assassination’s details.

Nearly an hour before the White House announced Kennedy’s death, UPI did something out of the ordinary, quoting a Secret Service agent – the famous Clint Hill – that the president was dead by the time he arrived at the hospital.  UPI officially announced Kennedy’s death, based on a statement by White House Deputy Press Secretary Malcolm Kilduff, at 1:35 p.m. CST, and the AP followed two minutes later.

In the arena of wire service journalism, where every second and minute mattered, that was similar to losing the Super Bowl 100 - 0.  In other words, the AP was resoundingly defeated. 

UPI and AP clients, at the time, included hundreds of newspapers around the world, along with numerous television and radio stations.  They demanded accurate and fast reporting.  If they took both wire services, they often compared their reports for accuracy, speed, even writing style.

On that fateful day, most Americans didn’t realize what Smith, Bell and their cohorts were enduring to provide an accurate account of Kennedy’s death.  Instead, they saw the news delivered by the man considered the country’s most trusted news source, CBS News Anchor Walter Cronkite, who spent his early years working for UPI’s predecessor, The United Press.

Like his fellow Unipresser, a term used to describe those who worked or were previously employed at UP or UPI, Cronkite was ahead of his television news competitors.  He was a man of great integrity and feared reporting Kennedy’s death until it was confirmed, knowing an erroneous report of such magnitude would ruin if not end his career.

That value is lost today.  NBC News Anchor Brian Williams was caught fudging the truth about his time covering the early days of the Iraq War in 2003.  The New York Times had its own issues with Jayson Blair, a reporter caught making up stories.  More recently, Rolling Stone magazine in 2014 reported a rape at the University of Virginia that never happened.

And while the news industry might want to be smug over Trump’s callouts of what’s fake news, it would be better served to remember that some of this problem starts with us.

Sanderson’s book traces Smith’s life from his youth in Georgia up through covering six presidents, from Franklin Roosevelt to Richard Nixon.  He was a media star in his own right, writing stories for leading magazines and even appearing on television’s “The Tonight Show.”  Sanderson also shows that Smith was a Washington insider, perhaps too friendly with the presidents he covered, especially Lyndon Johnson.

The problem with today’s technology is that anyone can be a “reporter”.  But instead of having an editor review, correct and ask questions about stories before they’re published or broadcast, anyone can write a blog, publish a video, or post on Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat or Instagram and rarely be corrected or stopped, unless, perhaps, they say something libelous or they’re publishing an act of terrorism.  In other words, we’re in the era of fake news, deliberately or not.

As Sanderson opines, “The Internet made news faster (but) we ... gained four minutes (and) lost a lot more.”  (page 212) 

The changed habits of today’s news consumers – taking in more information online – hasn’t helped the newspaper business.  It resulted in fewer advertising dollars and fewer reporters, Sanderson writes.  In 2000, newspaper newsrooms employed 56,200 editors, reporters, photographers and support staff.  It’s down to 32,900 as of 2016. 

This decrease isn’t just compromising the news business.  It’s also harming the country.  It’s hard to believe the nation’s depleted newsrooms didn’t contribute to some of the reporting prior to the November 8^th election predicting Hillary Clinton winning the presidency.  An election involving 50 states cannot be covered from the newsroom.  Reporters need to be on the ground, finding out what the citizenry is thinking about those who would lead them.

Only now are the editors at The Times and The Boston Globe discovering states like Iowa and Wisconsin and sending reporters there.  From reading the stories, you might think they were covering foreign countries.

The news business and the United States were fortunate to have Merriman Smith and certainly a UPI which covered politicians and events across the globe as the world’s largest, independently owned news wire service. 

The wire services have suffered many setbacks since the early 1960s.  UPI is much smaller, nothing like it was twenty or thirty years ago, having been sold a few times.  It’s owned by News World Communications, a media entity founded by the Unification Church.  The AP suffers the same woes as the media industry it serves, seeing its revenues decline nearly 25 percent from their peak in 2008.

Sanderson’s book is very well sourced, and he told me both AP and UPI cooperated with him on the book.  He also said AP’s archivists worry about how UPI is maintaining its archives.  Maybe there’s a deal to be done there, with UPI allowing AP to manage and store their archives.

Smith’s life ended in tragedy in 1970 with a self-inflicted pistol shot.  He’s buried at Arlington National Cemetery.  It’s a fitting tribute to him.  The man who stood for everything journalism holds near and dear – getting the story right – lays with America’s heroes, including his son, Albert, killed in 1966 while serving in the Army in Vietnam.

(Publishing details:  Bulletins from Dallas:  Reporting the JFK Assassination, Bill Sanderson.  New York:  Skyhorse Publishing, November 1, 2016)

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About me, the reviewer:  I’m a freelance reporter in Massachusetts and worked for UPI between 1984 and 1987, in Washington, Dallas, and Philadelphia.  I’m also the co-author, with Philip L. Kilbride, of Plural Marriage for Our Times:  A Reinvented Option? 2^nd Edition, Santa Barbara, CA:  Praeger Publishers, 2012.  My dad, Bob Page, was UPI’s general manager between 1975 and 1980.  He spent 20 years at UPI, from 1960 to 1980.

Link to my book:

https://www.amazon.com/Plural-Marriage-Our-Times-Reinvented/dp/0313384789

AP staff cuts: 

http://www.politico.com/media/story/2016/12/ap-lays-off-25-staffers-004887

AP 2015 annual revenues:

https://www.ap.org/ap-in-the-news/2016/aps-2015-profit-rises-30-percent-on-tax-benefit-cost-cutting

BusinessInsider.com on a fake “mommy” blog:

http://www.businessinsider.com/mommy-blogger-calls-b-on-the-mommy-blogging-industry-and-admits-much-of-her-blogging-was-fake-2016-5

Cisco on fake blogs:

http://blogs.cisco.com/security/cognitive-research-fake-blogs-generating-real-money

Pew report on the U.S. newspaper industry:

http://www.journalism.org/2016/06/15/newspapers-fact-sheet/

Arlington National Cemetery obituary of Merriman Smith’s son:

http://www.arlingtoncemetery.net/amsmithj.htm

The New York Times story about Rolling Stone magazine’s fake rape story at the University of Virginia:

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/05/business/media/rolling-stone-rape-story-case-guilty.html?_r=0

The New York Times story about Jayson Blair:

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/11/us/correcting-the-record-times-reporter-who-resigned-leaves-long-trail-of-deception.html

The New York Times story about early voting leading to a Hillary Clinton presidential victory:

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/12/us/politics/early-voting-registration.html

Looking into the future: The Day the Presses Stopped

bc-shenandoah
Attention: Editors & Publishers
Newspapers no longer printed
Monday, January 1, 2057

SHENANDOAH, Iowa (AP) – The last 600 copies of Iowa’s Shenandoah Valley News rolled off the presses last night, making it the last U.S. newspaper to shut down its print edition and closing a chapter in the history of the American daily newspaper industry.

Starting today, if the local population wants to read the Valley News, they’ll need to make sure their subscription is paid up so they can access the newspaper on the Internet.

The Shenandoah Valley News stood out in the landscape of the American daily newspaper industry because it was the sole, remaining holdout with a printed edition. Prior to the Valley News closing its printed edition, there had been a group of small newspapers in Kentucky that continued to offer a print edition but they were discontinued five years ago.

As of today, not a single American daily newspaper is printed. If anyone wants to read a daily newspaper published in the United States, they’ll need access to the Internet, and, more often than not, a valid subscription, so they can read it on their home, office, car or handheld computer as well as the many other ways that the Internet can be accessed.

The Shenandoah Valley News, until 10 years ago, had a daily and Sunday circulation of around 1,200 copies. But with a decline in the local population, and the ones that remained handy with a computer or other handheld devices that also accessed the Internet, the paper’s circulation slipped more than 50 percent, to around 570 on Sunday and 540 on Thursday, the only other day it was printed.

Like others in the American daily newspaper industry, the Valley News cutback on the number of pages it printed and reduced the number of days it published a printed edition; it even offered a tabloid edition of itself, starting 10 years ago.

“Nothing worked,” said Roy Oakes, publisher of the Valley News, so he and his managing editor, Wanda Lloyd, on instructions from their corporate owner, Google, started preparing for the day when they would only offer the paper on the Internet.

“We’ll save a bundle by not printing the thing,” said Oakes. “And, so far, the paper – can we still call it that? – is receiving a strong reception on the Internet.”

“The only thing that’s surprising about this move is how long we waited to make it,” said Lauren Jurgins, CEO of Google, the country’s largest newspaper publisher. “We’re an Internet company so it’s surprising we let the Shenandoah Valley News offer a print edition as long as it did. Our other newspapers stopped printing years ago.”

Google changed its strategy about 20 years ago when it decided to own information providers and intellectual property, not just broker them. As a result, they purchased a slew of newspapers, including the Gannett and McClatchy chains, as well as a number of book publishers.

“Traditional publishers, whether it was newspapers, books or other kinds of intellectual property, as we saw it, just didn’t appreciate what they had,” said Jurgins. “We’ve put these products on steroids, making them available anyway possible, and the results, so far, have exceeded our expectations.”

Microsoft soon followed, purchasing Chicago-based Tribune Company as well as a few assets from Hearst, including its newspapers and some magazines.

As of today, Oakes says, the paper’s Internet subscriptions are more than double what they were in print, around 1,300.

The Valley News has been offering its subscribers a 50 percent discount for the Internet edition. Subscribers can purchase either a 12-week or a full-year subscription for either $72.00 or $312.00, respectively.

Not only will the paper save money on newsprint costs, it also eliminated its circulation department. The paper’s classified advertising telemarketing department, based in the Philippines, will also handle consumer sales of the newspaper’s Web site.

The paper’s affiliation with Newspaper Editing, a company offering off-shore copyediting services from Vietnam, will continue.

“Our newsroom staff is composed of one editor and three reporters, one of whom is part time,” said Oakes. “Everyone in our newsroom knows how to update our Web site as well as send our stories to our digital distributor.

“Our ad folks are only selling retailers and car dealers in our designated market area,” Oakes said.

“In order to keep these subscriptions, and get a few new ones, we’ll need to make sure we’re on top of the communities we cover,” said Lloyd. “Hopefully, our advertising people we’ll be successful, too.”

It’s generally accepted by economists that the American daily newspaper industry started its decline about a century ago when television networks started offering news programming. The industry was further hindered with the advent of the World Wide Web.

“People became accustomed to reading the paper on their home PC,” said Arthur Twyinesome, an economics professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “As a result, newspaper circulation declined and the newspaper industry, for about three decades, never charged anyone to read the paper on the Internet.”

Further hindering the newspaper industry was the line of “i” products introduced by Apple Computer, starting in the century’s first decade. After the successful introduction of the iPod and iPhone, the company went on to introduce, with great success, the iBox, iCup and iShades – products that allowed people Internet access at anytime, regardless of what they were doing, and, as a result, reduced their purchases of printed products.

The iBox, sold exclusively to Kellogg’s, allows consumers Internet access from their favorite box of cereal.

“The great thing about the iBox is that consumers can learn more about our cereals or catch up on the news or even read a book – all while eating their breakfast,” said Winston Jared, a spokesman for Kellogg’s.

The iCup, initially oblong-shaped, gives consumers that ability to access the Internet from their coffee cup and was sold exclusively to Starbucks; a rounded iCup was introduced last year and Starbucks reports that consumers are accepting the rounded screen.

“The iCup is a hit with our customers,” said Anne Nestroff, Starbucks CEO. “It gives us an advantage over other coffee sellers because it allows our customers to catch up on the news, e-mail or whatever while enjoying their favorite java.”

“The beauty of the iBox and the iCup is that they’re disposable,” said a spokesman for Apple. “Once you’re done, you just throw it away – or place it in your recycling bin.”

Apple introduced iShades, a line of eyeglasses that can be used in a variety of ways, five years ago. Not only they can be used to correct vision but they’re also sunglasses and can access the Internet. They’re especially popular with train commuters or other travelers, allowing them to catch up on news and entertainment programming without having to carry anything.

Apple reports that more than 500 million iShades have been sold.

“We’re ahead of our own expectations,” said Steve Jenson, Apple CEO.

Some communities, like New York, Boston and Chicago, have cracked down on iShades, prohibiting people from wearing them if they decide to drive their car. If they’re just sitting in their car, and have placed it on automatic drive, then their allowed to wear their iShades.

Printed products took a further hit when Verizon, Microsoft and Electronic Arts teamed up to create a handheld gaming and telephone device that connects to the Internet, called the XPG.

“You can play games, go to the Internet, call your friends or download a book,” said Sally Higgins, a spokesman for Microsoft. “The XPG is the only handheld device anyone needs.”

By the time most U.S. daily newspapers stopped offering a printed edition, around 2040, the industry’s aggregate circulation had dropped to under 30 million. That was a loss of 20 million over the course of 30 years, said Juan Agranos, executive director of the Newspaper Association of America.

“Newspaper Internet subscriptions are increasing,” he said. “As of the last audit, overall newspaper Internet circulation is around 45 million.”

As a result, Agranos said, advertising on newspaper Web sites is increasing.

“Advertisers are learning that, once again, people turn to daily newspapers to be informed,” he said.

In addition to selling more subscriptions to its Web edition, the Shenandoah Valley News, like its newspaper colleagues, will sell its stories á la carte on Apple’s iNews, a system that allows consumers to have news stories covering their interests sent to their e-mail address.

“We think that’ll be a good source of revenue for us, especially since so many people have moved away,” said Oakes. “Our stories on iNews will be an easy way for them to stay in touch with southwest Iowa.”

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