[...]... only in the ‘vertigo of interpretations’ surrounding Watergate that Baudrillard can belatedly posit the 8 THE KENNEDY ASSASSINATION Kennedy assassinations as the real deal, and yet that sense of vertigo is itself partly an effect of a crisis of confidence in the narratives of the authorities and the authority of narrative itself that emerged from the Kennedy assassination Characterising the Kennedy assassination. .. summarising what the newspapers, magazines and broadcasters actually covered, before going on to look at the wider question of how these early accounts shaped future ones, and whether the event was a success or a failure for the media 9 10 THE KENNEDY ASSASSINATION Reporting the Assassination The media had to scramble hard to put together a coherent account of the assassination The story of how the news was... (UPI) and Jack Bell of The Associated Press (AP) were in the White House press pool car just behind the vice president’s car, and so were near enough to hear the shots clearly (and for one of the passengers to realise what they were), if not to see the shooting As Kennedy s car took off at high speed they shouted at their own driver to give chase In the press pool car on the way to the hospital Smith and... talk about their indelible memories of the shooting of JFK often what they’re really talking about is their memory of certain television images: the event they remember is not so much the Kennedy assassination per se as the four-day telethon of which they were the exhausted but compulsive viewers 3 History Reporters involved in the initial coverage of the assassination repeatedly asserted their credentials... which the Kennedy administration was deeply embroiled If anything, the succession of Johnson to the presidency quickened the pace of liberal reform that Kennedy had only cautiously advanced in his brief term of office, not least in the sphere of civil rights Perhaps the real consequence of the 6 THE KENNEDY ASSASSINATION assassination was to ensure that Kennedy would remain posthumously elevated to the. .. genius, such as the arrival at Andrews Air Force Base of the presidential plane carrying 20 THE KENNEDY ASSASSINATION both President Johnson and the body of JFK A live feed from the air base showed to the nation the blood stains on the normally impeccably dressed Mrs Kennedy Jackie had been insisting all day that she not change her blood-soaked clothes: ‘Let them see what they have done.’ The weekend was... placards), and that the Secret Service had whisked Kennedy away from harm and embarrass- JOURNALISM 11 ment It was only when the press bus reached the Trade Mart and found the president’s car not there that they knew something was up – but they still didn’t know what The assembled guests were just sitting down to the lunch that Kennedy was to have eaten when the reporters rushed in looking for the press room... assassination itself, since their focus is on the life and legacy of the president they served However, in their concern to do justice, as they saw it, to the memory of Kennedy, these hagiographic accounts end up casting the assassination in a particular light, if at times only by negative contrast Most took the line that the assassination was a personal and national tragedy as it cut short the life of an energetic... courage in refusing to heed the warnings of potential danger The more that Schlesinger emphasises the cosmopolitan sophistication of the Kennedy White House, the stronger the contrast with the assassination in Dallas becomes He gives the argument a further twist in his concluding remarks on the political legacy of Kennedy, noting that the real tribute to his memory was the absence of intolerance and... is the Assassin’ Over the long weekend newspapers dedicated on average about half of their available column inches to the assassination, diverting some of the space from withdrawn advertising and the rest from the omission of other local, state and national news stories The coverage was divided between the events (including biographies of the major players), the effects (along with reaction in the . David Holloway The Moon Landing by Alasdair Spark The Kennedy Assassination Peter Knight Edinburgh University Press © Peter Knight, 2007 Edinburgh University Press Ltd 22 George Square, Edinburgh Typeset. idealism, before the onset of violence and 4 THE KENNEDY ASSASSINATION social breakdown later in the 1960s. In the very early days supporters of Kennedy saw the event as an outburst of the kind of. representing the Kennedy assassination is that it seems to push to the limit the very idea of realist representation and the trans- parency of images to reflect the world. Taking this idea further, the