The importance of the event can’t be underestimated. Before 1960, there were candidates who debated (Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas were 19th century examples) and there were candidates who appeared on television. And there were candidates who went out on the trail and “stumped” for votes, appearing in public at pre-arranged events or at whistle-stop tours on trains.
But most voters never had a chance to see candidates in a close, personal way, giving them the opportunity to form an opinion about the next president based on their looks, their voice and their opinions.
I would think that if the Kennedy assassination was covered on a live broadcast, the Zapruder film wouldn’t have been such a big thing.
How did the networks of 60 years ago know to put their cameras in Dealey Plaza? They didn’t have portable handheld cameras beaming the signal up to satellites at the time. I don’t think there were news teams following the motorcade, and I don’t think they could have covered it if they had been.
Or could Denis Leary be exaggerating for comic effect?
Exactly. The networks weren’t covering the event, so the Zapruder film was the only video evidence.
So Leary’s point is probably that, ever since the networks missed JFK’s shooting, they’ve made sure to cover every public moment of every president, just in case something like that happens again.
That’s no excuse for all the coverage of Trump’s motorcades, of course. Private citizen hires a bunch of LEOs to escort him to and from airports? Who gives a shit?
I recall some news story at the time of Reagan’s assassination attempt, caught by someone on the press pool covering Reagan’s every move. When asked why the constant press coverage evolved that way, the answer was to cover the “awful awful” if (and when) another assassination attempt occurs. Nobody wants to see that happen, but everyone would want to see how it happened.