We Interrupt This Broadcast
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From six-time New York Times bestselling author Joe Garner, and based on his groundbreaking multimedia book, “We Interrupt This Broadcast,” comes a 12-episode, audio docu-series hosted by broadcast legend Bill Kurtis, and narrated by NBC’s Brian Williams. Each episode unfolds with the brisk pace and tone of a thriller while presenting an in-depth look into the reporting of, and reaction to, the extraordinary events that became the benchmarks of the American story. It is said that “breaking news” is the first draft of history. “We Interrupt This Broadcast” marks the first time the stories of these historical broadcast news events are told exclusively by the broadcasters and TV journalists whose work created those drafts in real-time.
Credits
Hosted by Bill Kurtis & Narrated by Brian Williams
Created, produced and directed by Joe Garner
Written by Mark Rowland, Brian Williams, Colin Madine, and Joe Garner
Sound engineering and design by Paul Bahr, Peachtree Sound
Additional audio engineering provided by Beowulf Rochlen, Two Squared Media Productions
Website and graphics designed by George Vasilopoulos, 921 Associates
Executive Producers are Brian Williams, Ron Hartenbaum, Scott Calka, and Joe Garner
A very special thank you to Donna LaPietra and Diane Anello
A Production of i4 Media Ventures, LLC
www.weinterruptthisbroadcast.org
Available on
Community
19 episodes
Friday, December 14, 2012. It was a clear, crisp, and trouble-free start that morning at Sandy Hook Elementary School. Classrooms filled with kids excited for Christmas, just 11 days away. The school day started, as they always had, with a comforting routine. 9 A M, children settling into their classrooms. 9:10 A M, the pledge of allegiance. 9:15 A M, outside doors…locked. Then came 9:30 A M, when the day and the children’s innocence was shattered. On this 10th remembrance, Brian Williams shares the story as you’ve never heard it before. Told by the by the journalists who covered it, and the parents who suffered through it. CONTRIBUTORS: Chris Jansing, anchor for MSNBC Chris Hansen, former correspondent for Dateline NBC Connecticut U S Senator Chris Murphy Ali Velshi, MSNBC anchor, former correspondent for CNN Nicole Hockley, parent of first grader, Dylan Hockley. Co-founder of Sandy Hook Promise Foundation Mark Barden, parent of first grader, Daniel Barden. Co-founder of Sandy Hook Promise Foundation Michael St. Peter, former news director at WVIT TV, NBC Connecticut affiliate Liz Dahlem, former filed reporter for WVIT TV, NBC Connecticut affiliate John Senecal, news cameraman for WVIT TV, NBC Connecticut affiliate See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
On April 19, 1995, two years to the day following the U.S. government’s botched raid on the Branch Davidian compound near Waco, Texas, a rented truck pulled to the curb in front of the nine story Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in downtown Oklahoma City. Inside the building, about 500 federal employees, and several hundred visitors were beginning their workday. Then, at 9:04 a.m., came the explosion which would alter the American social and political landscape. Contributors: Jerry Bohnen, former KTOK News director David Bohrman, former executive producer of special events for NBC News Beth O’Connell, former Senior Producer, Today Show Stewart Dan, former Chicago-based producer, Today Show Tony Clark, former Dallas Bureau Chief and CNN Correspondent Trace Ready, former CNN cameraman Chris Hansen, Investigative news reporter Stephanie Becker, former Los Angeles-based producer, NBC Broadcast audio licensed from CNN/WarnerMedia, CBS News, NBC News. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
He was an extraordinarily gifted athlete, the premier football player of his time, a California golden child who emerged from abject poverty to win the Heisman trophy in college and set records as a pro football running back. Effortless grace and a ready smile eased his transition from ex-athlete to corporate-backed celebrity. All of that changed on the night of June 13, 1992, when his ex-wife Nicole Simpson, and her friend Ronald Goldman, were found brutally murdered. Evidence gleaned from the murder site suggested that her executioner may well have been O.J. Simpson. But when police decided to arrest Simpson two days later, an even more surreal tableaux unfolded - live on national television in front of 95-million viewers. Contributors: Hannah Zoey Tur, an independent helicopter reporter in Los Angeles. Carl Stein, video journalist for KCBS, Channel 2 in Los Angeles Diane Dimond, the investigative crime reporter for the television show Hard Copy Steve Futterman, Los Angeles-based reporter for CBS News Radio. Broadcast audio licensed from: NBC News ABC News Los Angeles News Service See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
The Space Shuttle Challenger flew nine missions into space. But its fateful tenth mission, which lasted only 73 seconds, ensured its tragic place in history. On the morning of January 28, 1986, a crew of seven boarded the Challenger, including a New Hampshire grade school teacher named Christa McAuliffe, representing the aspirations of so-called ‘ordinary’ citizens to journey into space. It was an adventure vicariously shared by millions of Americans through television, as the Challenger lifted off at 11:38a.m. from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida and hurtled majestically into the sky. But less than two minutes later, horror struck in full view of all who watched. Contributors: John Zarrella, former CNN Miami Bureau Chief Tony Clark, former national correspondent for CNN Beth O’Connell, former coordinator for the NBC Boston Bureau William Harwood, CBS News space analyst Steve Nesbitt, the voice of NASA Mission Control See Privacy Policy athttps://art19.com/privacyand California Privacy Notice athttps://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Pandemonium reigned in downtown Dallas on the afternoon of November 22, 1963. An assassin's bullet had murdered President John Fitzgerald Kennedy. Within an hour, police had arrested their lead suspect Lee Harvey Oswald, a former Marine and accomplished sharpshooter. On Sunday morning, November 24, with TV cameras in place, and NBC airing it live, Oswald was led through the department's basement for transport to the county jail. And, for the first time, the nation watched an historic national news event - as it happened. Written by Joe Garner and Brian Williams Contributors: Gary DeLaune, formally a reporter for KLIF Radio Dallas Bill Lord, formerly a producer for ABC News Ike Pappas, formerly a reporter for WNEW Radio New York Bob Huffaker, formerly a reporter for KRLD Radio and television and the CBS affiliate in Dallas Fred Rheinstein, formerly the field director for NBC News Chad Hagan, formerly a producer for NBC News Homer Vinso, formerly a cameraman for NBC News See Privacy Policy athttps://art19.com/privacyand California Privacy Notice athttps://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
“War of The Worlds” is a phenomenon of a bygone era, and of a medium a hundred years old, yet its lessons resonate to this day. It’s the original “deepfake of 1938.” A radio drama about an alien invasion but presented as “breaking news,” scared the daylights out the nation. On the evening of October 30, 1938, radio listeners across the U.S. heard a startling report of mysterious creatures and terrifying war machines moving toward New York City. But the hair-raising broadcast was not a real news bulletin—it was Orson Welles' adaptation of the H. G. Wells classic. This episode goes behind the scenes of the making of Welles' famed radio play and its impact. Welles's broadcast became a major scandal, prompting a different kind of mass panic as Americans debated the bewitching power of the radio and the country's vulnerability in a time of crisis. When the debate was over, American broadcasting had changed for good, but not for the better. Written by Joe Garner and Brian Williams Contributors: A.Brad Schwartz, broadcast historian and author of BROADCAST HYSTERIA: Orson Welles’s War of the Worlds and the Art of Fake News (Hill & Wang, May 2015) Orson Welles Howard Koch John Houseman See Privacy Policy athttps://art19.com/privacyand California Privacy Notice athttps://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
It was the darkest nightmare of every parent come to life - and it happened in the land of “It can’t happen here.” The setting was Littleton, Colorado, a comfortably middle-class suburb of Denver, a place where people come to raise a family, and where the arch over a hallway at local Columbine High School is inscribed with the motto: “The finest kids in America pass through these halls.” But on April 20, 1997 - the halls of Columbine suddenly became the scene of a murderous reign of terror. Coverage of the shootings was intensified by the ubiquity of 24-hour cable news, and its constant need to come up with fresh information - often incorrect. The media quickly realized they simply had no protocols for a mass casualty incident of such dimensions. Broadcast audio courtesy of KOA Radio, Denver, CO, ABC News Video Source, CBS News CONTRIBUTORS: __ __ See Privacy Policy athttps://art19.com/privacyand California Privacy Notice athttps://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
As long and vast as the history of our country may seem to us, the right of women to vote is shockingly new. Many of us had parents or grandparents who were born before women’s voting rights were codified. In fact, you just heard the famous suffragette Alice Paul report the news: The State of Tennessee ratified the 19th Amendment to the Constitution by just ONE VOTE.. and that deciding vote was cast on August 18th of 1920. CAST: Alice Paul, the Suffragette News Network (SNN) is played by Jillian Lee Garner Representative Harry Burn is played by Jason Marsden Anti-suffragist J.B. Sanford, Chairman of the Democrat Caucus in California is played by Wally Wingert Suffragette Carrie Chapman Catt is played by Jennifer Cihi Tennessee House Speaker Seth M. Walker is played by anonymous. Rep. Joseph Hanover is played by Paul Bahr Laura Jones, SNN correspondent is played by Michelle Schulman Carol Tilson, SNN anchor is played by Kourtney Bell See Privacy Policy athttps://art19.com/privacyand California Privacy Notice athttps://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
It was the biggest overseas military operation in the biggest war in world history - and its best kept secret as well. D Day demonstrated radio’s ability to carry news with clarity and immediacy. And while reporters like Robert Trout, Edward R. Murrow, and Richard C. Hottelet became household names, it was the ingenuity of an NBC stringer reporter named Wright Bryan, who finagled his way aboard a flight of paratroopers and became the first to report the landing. CONTRIBUTORS: __ __ See Privacy Policy athttps://art19.com/privacyand California Privacy Notice athttps://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
The Hindenburg was an engineering masterpiece, an airship as large and as grand as the Titanic - and as doomed. On May 6, 1937, a young radio reporter named Herbert Morrison was on hand to record the Hindenburg’s arrival at Lakehurst, New Jersey. Instead, Morrison helped radio to broadcast one of modern history’s great disasters, as it suddenly unfolded in all its terrible glory. But even as Morrison’s eyewitness report chronicled the end of one era, it signaled the beginning of another - an age in which electronic media would routinely report shocking events in the moment that they occurred. In addition to the story of the Hindenburg, this serves as a preview of Season 1. Broadcast audio courtesy of Marc Garabedian, Mark 56 Records CONTRIBUTORS: __ __ See Privacy Policy athttps://art19.com/privacyand California Privacy Notice athttps://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
When Ronald Reagan was elected president in November 1980, he hoped to defy an unusually grim circumstance of that office. In the seven previous even-numbered decades, every U.S. President had died in office - four times from assassin’s bullets. A few months later on March 30, 1981, as President Reagan strolled outside the Washington Hilton Hotel, he nearly met the same fate. Broadcast audio licensed from ABC News Video Source CONTRIBUTORS: __ __ See Privacy Policy athttps://art19.com/privacyand California Privacy Notice athttps://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
September 11, 2001 dawned crisp and blue in New York City. The gathering hum of a seemingly ordinary workday began taking shape in lower Manhattan. Then the ‘ordinary’ was shattered by the extraordinary. The world changing event that unfolded that morning was unimaginable and unprecedented. It was a sneak attack of epic proportions on American soil, terrifying the nation while thrusting the news media into uncharted territory. Not even the most seasoned news director or reporter at the time had anything in their arsenal of experiences that could have prepared them for their task that day. Broadcast audio licensed from CNN/WarnerMedia, NBC News, and courtesy of WINS and WOR Radio. CONTRIBUTOR(S): __ __ See Privacy Policy athttps://art19.com/privacyand California Privacy Notice athttps://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
She was a princess who never lived happily ever after - and the world loved her for it. Diana Spencer became a global celebrity when she wedded England’s Prince Charles in July 1981. But the fairy tale marriage soon unraveled, and, after no end of adulterous revelations and public separations, finally ended in divorce. But Diana remained a princess in the hearts of her millions of fans - and of the mass media, who faithfully chronicled her every move. Ultimately, it was the pursuit of an image with the highest bounty that lead to her tragic death. The lingering legacy of the death of Princess Di is how media must operate within this ambiguous territory, without overstepping perceived notions of privacy, yet also serving the insatiable appetite of editors and the public. Broadcast audio licensed from CNN/WarnerMedia, BBC CONTRIBUTORS: __ __ See Privacy Policy athttps://art19.com/privacyand California Privacy Notice athttps://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
He was a man in the prime of life when he traveled to Dallas, Texas in November 1963, on a routine political fence-mending mission to help shore up his chances for re-election as president the following year. At about twenty five minutes past noon on November 22, he was riding in an open convertible with his wife through downtown Dallas, waving to cheering crowds, when the unthinkable occurred - an unforgettable event that would haunt and define the turbulent decade to come. Broadcast audio licensed from CBS News CONTRIBUTORS: __ __ See Privacy Policy athttps://art19.com/privacyand California Privacy Notice athttps://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
The first reports from Los Angeles had an all-too familiar ring - a black motorist who had been stopped by police for drunk driving was pulled out of his car and beaten by several white officers. But this time, the entire incident was captured on a bystander’s video camera, then broadcast via television around the world. When the offending officers went on trial, an all-white jury saw things differently. After announcing a deadlock on a single assault charge and acquitting the four police officers, the city erupted in an eerie replay of the Watts riots thirty years before which had left much of Los Angeles’ inner-city community in ruins. It all began with a hand-held video camera and ended with the whole world watching a great city going up in flames. And just how much had television’s wall-to-wall coverage fanned those flames. Broadcast audio licensed from NBC Radio; KTLA/Nexstar, Inc. CONTRIBUTOR: __ __ See Privacy Policy athttps://art19.com/privacyand California Privacy Notice athttps://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
It was the election that did not decide the presidency, and the biggest media debacle since “Dewey Defeats Truman.” The 2000 campaign between presidential candidates George W. Bush and Al Gore was shaping up as a cliffhanger. Pundits predicted that its outcome would hinge on results from a few key states - Ohio, Michigan, and most of all, Florida. On election night, television news organizations staged a collective drag race on the crowded highway of democracy, recklessly endangering the electoral process, the political life of the country, and their own credibility. Broadcast audio licensed from CNN/WarnerMedia, CBS News, NBC News CONTRIBUTORS: __ __ See Privacy Policy athttps://art19.com/privacyand California Privacy Notice athttps://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
A 31-year-old enslaved man named Nathanial “Nat” Turner, who was both literate and a preacher in the Virginia slave community, led a bloody two-day uprising in Southampton, Virginia. Known as both “preacher Nat” and “general Nat” to his followers, Turner and six other hatchet-wielding disciples began their rebellion by killing Turner’s own master, Joseph Travis, along with his wife, nine-year-old son, and a hired hand -- all as they slept in their beds. They secured guns and horses and set off across the countryside in a murderous rampage. His initial group, along with an estimated 75 followers, murdered at least 55 citizens in the area. After the insurrection, Nat Turner was on the run for over 6-weeks, a fugitive from the authorities. While they were searching for him and his accomplices, the terrible details of the insurrection came to light through news reports and witness statements. CAST: Nyah Pierson, reporter for the Liberator News Network (LNN) is played by Nyah Pierson William Lloyd Garrison, Founder & Publisher of the The Liberator (newspaper) is played by Wally Wingert Johnny Dixon, news reporter from One Virginia News (OVN) is played by Beau Bridgland Mary Blackford is played by Jillian Lee Garner Nathaniel "Nat" Turner is played by Gregory Eagles See Privacy Policy athttps://art19.com/privacyand California Privacy Notice athttps://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
It was the finale to a decade of turbulence and upheaval, but this time it was an event through which a nation could put aside its differences and stand together to marvel at the achievement. In 1961, President John F. Kennedy had pledged that before the sixties were over, an American would walk on the moon. The enormity of the mission aside, one question remained, how to get a television signal 240 thousand miles from the lunar surface onto televisions in living rooms around the globe. Robert Wussler, Walter Cronkite's producer, called it "the world's greatest single broadcast" in television history. Broadcast audio licensed from CBS News CONTRIBUTORS: __ __ See Privacy Policy athttps://art19.com/privacyand California Privacy Notice athttps://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Coming July 20th, 2021 See Privacy Policy athttps://art19.com/privacyand California Privacy Notice athttps://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
