THE ASSASSINATION OF PRESIDENT KENNEDY 50 YEARS LATER WHEN WALTER CRONKITE SHONE AS AMERICA'S ANCHORMAN.............

As Day 2 of the four day of 50th Anniversary of the tragic Death of the 35th President of the United States John Fitzgerald Kennedy proceeds, the Commemoration of the events and saturation live  television network news coverage is impressive to behold.  Watching much of the livestreaming of CBSNews.com; and MSNBC.com; yesterday and preparing to do so again today, it it providing striking poignancies.  Having witnessed selected portions of the filmed highlights during the past five decades. those highlights are only the warmup to recollecting the reporting our Nation witnessed, commercial and entertainment free, from Friday afternoon November 22, 1963 to the evening of Monday November 22, 1963.  Watching the CBS News and the NBC News coverage from the day of the Kennedy Assassination, as it unfolded a half century ago yesterday I am struck by a few fresh observations for me.  First, how focused and articulately communicative Walter Cronkite and his colleagues truly were during the initial hours of live coverage without a net they were, from the moment he broke into regular CBS programming with a voice over and only a news bulletin card showing as they awaited a hot television camera to go live with; which when several minutes later he was seen on the air, saw him in the midst of the frentic CBS Newsroom, the confident anchorman exhibiting the full effectiveness and attributes of a news reporter not rattled or detached, but maintaining a calm, deliberate resolve in assembling and delivering the unfolding news as accurately as possible.  Chet Huntley on NBC News coverage of that devastating day, seemed to be distracted and much less assertive in his role as anchorman, letting Frank McGee and a news producer do most of the heavy lifting of the events of the shooting of President Kennedy and its aftermath.  Perhaps it was being without his usual news reporting partner and co-anchor David Brinkley at the outset, or the depth personal shock and grief he was experiencing.  The quality of the news coverage by both NBC News and CBS News during those horrible days was impeccable. what I now observe underscores the way the already respected Walter Cronkite become the reassuring, turn to presence in the homes of Americans, a national Uncle Walter, whose coverage and news coverage of the Kennedy Assassination, the Space Program, Political Conventions, Presidential Inaugurations, the Viernam War, and the Watergate Scandal, became, "The Most Trusted Man In America".  Time for me to get back to the livestreaming of the JFK Half Century livestreaming.............Fr.  Troy David