Yesterday was the 50th anniversary of the assassination of JFK, and all week many news outlets have been covering this tragedy. What I've found most interesting is how some outlets are comparing how this story was covered back then to how we cover news stories today. On the NBC television news cast they showed the anchor man from the 60s announcing that JFK had been killed. He started by saying, "These are the facts we know at this moment..." and then when on to say he had been shot and killed. It was intriguing watching this because it exemplifies the heyday of the "gatekeeper." In that time the anchors of news programs told you the news and unless you also got a newspaper you would only hear news from this one person. That meant that everyone was getting the same news more or less. I imagine people all over America were huddled around their television screens in that moment when the NBC anchor made that announcement. Now, if there is a tragedy, most of the time we hear about it over the internet because it is a breaking news story. If we do turn on the TV for coverage, the anchors of programs probably will not be the ones breaking the news to you.
Another significant aspect of JFK's assassination is the fact that he was basically the first president to be around when television was becoming really popular and everyone had a set in their homes. Americans knew what their president looked like and followed his presidency on TV and perhaps felt closer to him then previous generations had felt for the current president. This only heightened people's sadness about this terrible act. It's interesting to think that now everyone in the world knows about Obama and can track what he's doing all the time through Twitter and Facebook and online news stories. We are closer to our presidents now more than ever and I wonder how this change in relationship has affected being president and our reaction to events having to do with our presidents.
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