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Anwar Sadat Assassination Coverage

P

paulsonj72

Frequent Participant
How did the US television networks handle the assassination of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat in October of 1981. I honestly don't know because we in my family never turned the TV set on in the morning for the morning shows. I know later that afternoon ABC had baseball and they said if events warranted they would break into the game and go to ABC news. Here is part one the ALDS game from Oakland that afternoon and Al Michaels clearly states if events warrant they will go back to ABC news for more information. Thank you for your help.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1q4uZwskHgk
 
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They had plenty of coverage, though because it was overseas had to rely on phones a good amount of time. CBS was the first to announce the death at around 10:30 a.m. ET, even though official confirmation hadn't been given. Ironically, the reporter providing the info, Scotti Williston, was giving it to Dan Rather--who in 1963 had indicated that a source had told him that JFK had died--before any confirmation. The early reports said that Sadat's injuries weren't life-threatening.

ABC followed with the news a few minutes later, followed soon after by NBC. CBS briefly signed off on their wall-to-wall coverage at about 2:30, then had to come back on shortly after when unedited footage of the shooting came out.

John Chancellor and Tom Brokaw handled things on NBC, while Frank Reynolds was AGAIN the picture of befuddlement on ABC, though he worked primarily with Steve Bell of GMA. Barbara Walters was also part of that coverage.

Despite the rush to be first, all of the networks were leery of jumping the gun after getting raked over the coals for killing off James Brady six months earlier, so they made a point to note that the official confirmation hadn't been provided--it finally came at 2 p.m. ET when Hosni Mubarak announced it.
 
BD Sullivan said:
They had plenty of coverage, though because it was overseas had to rely on phones a good amount of time. CBS was the first to announce the death at around 10:30 a.m. ET, even though official confirmation hadn't been given.
Click to expand...

What was interesting is that all the networks announced the "assassination attempt" almost simultaneously earlier on.

I was in Chicago that morning, monitoring the Spanish language stations (WOJO FM and several AM stations) as part of an "expert witness" analysis I was doing for WOJO as part of its defense of a license revocation challenge. At the same time, I was scanning CBS, ABC and NBC in mute on the TV, as I was making a case that WOJO provided valuable news services that the other stations did not offer.

So I was doing a written log of the Spanish language stations to compare.

I essentially saw the same breaking news show up on all the TV networks in a very narrow window. WOJO had it on within 15 minutes in a news bulletin, and the other Spanish language stations did not cover it all morning.

That coverage by WOJO played a big part in saving its license.
 
I was a college junior at the time. I didn't know Sadat had been shot until I got back to my off campus housing in midafternoon that day. I forget from what media source I first learned it.

Lennon, Reagan, JP2, Sadat... Larry Kane pointed out that all of that took place within a year on Philly's Ch. 10's 1st anniversary special on Lennon's murder. Quite a brutal 12 months. (Some will recall that Kane, as a young Miami reporter, interviewed the Beatles in Miami Beach in 1964 so anything Beatle especially resonates with that reporter.)

ixnay
 
All I remember about it was one of the networks was showing unedited footage, and there was a guy who was shot sitting on the ground, and one of his arms was just dangling half-shot off. Gruesome sight.

Bronx
 
I also remember Dan Rather talking to Scotti Williston by phone (nice name, she had ;)).

ixnay
 
Vahan said:
I think all programs on NBC were preempted, including all the game shows.
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Daytime. NBC aired baseball that night with the Dodgers and Astros playing in Game 1 of the 1981 Division Series that were played due to the strike in 1981.
 
paulsonj72 said:
Daytime. NBC aired baseball that night with the Dodgers and Astros playing in Game 1 of the 1981 Division Series that were played due to the strike in 1981.
Click to expand...

Which means the October 6, 1981 episodes of Blockbusters and Card Sharks didn't air until reruns; for some reason, the Password Plus episode that was supposed to air that day was instead pushed ahead to the next day.
 
What really hampered the networks was that the fact that Cairo television had gone abruptly off the air, so the major networks didn't have any footage to use. Unlike when the Pope was shot, where they had footage right off the bat.
 
BD Sullivan said:
They had plenty of coverage, though because it was overseas had to rely on phones a good amount of time. CBS was the first to announce the death at around 10:30 a.m. ET, even though official confirmation hadn't been given. Ironically, the reporter providing the info, Scotti Williston, was giving it to Dan Rather--who in 1963 had indicated that a source had told him that JFK had died--before any confirmation. The early reports said that Sadat's injuries weren't life-threatening.

ABC followed with the news a few minutes later, followed soon after by NBC. CBS briefly signed off on their wall-to-wall coverage at about 2:30, then had to come back on shortly after when unedited footage of the shooting came out.

John Chancellor and Tom Brokaw handled things on NBC, while Frank Reynolds was AGAIN the picture of befuddlement on ABC, though he worked primarily with Steve Bell of GMA. Barbara Walters was also part of that coverage.

Despite the rush to be first, all of the networks were leery of jumping the gun after getting raked over the coals for killing off James Brady six months earlier, so they made a point to note that the official confirmation hadn't been provided--it finally came at 2 p.m. ET when Hosni Mubarak announced it.
Click to expand...

NBC and Tom Brokaw were the first to show the unedited footage, while CBS was airing Search for Tomorrow. ABC showed the footage next, then CBS preempted "SFT" to show the footage too.
 
danderson6500 said:
NBC and Tom Brokaw were the first to show the unedited footage, while CBS was airing Search for Tomorrow. ABC showed the footage next, then CBS preempted "SFT" to show the footage too.
Click to expand...

ABC did leave the air at 3 PM ET as scheduled that day to broadcast game 1 of the AL West Division Series that happened due to the 1981 MLB players strike and subsequent split season. Al Michaels did alert viewers if anything happened that required a break in they would go to ABC News for further information.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1q4uZwskHgk&t=122s
 
paulsonj72 said:
ABC did leave the air at 3 PM ET as scheduled that day to broadcast game 1 of the AL West Division Series that happened due to the 1981 MLB players strike and subsequent split season. Al Michaels did alert viewers if anything happened that required a break in they would go to ABC News for further information.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1q4uZwskHgk&t=122s
Click to expand...

Baseball coverage would probably have been affected strike or no strike. The NL and ALCS's would've been going on at that time if there had been no stoppage. The strike tore out the middle third of the season*, so the Phillies, Dodgers, A's, and Yankees (the division leaders when they walked out) were, when play resumed, crowned after-the-fact first-half division champs . The final third of the season became a second half. Kudos on your homework, guys. :)

Pete Rose of the Phillies spent the strike tied with Stan Musial as the NL's all time career hit getter. Rose moved ahead of Stan the Man in the Phils' season reopener. I got a last minute call from my restaurant where I cleaned plates to come in that night, thus missing history, and I'm still bitter about it. ):(

ixnay
 
ixnay said:
Baseball coverage would probably have been affected strike or no strike. The NL and ALCS's would've been going on at that time if there had been no stoppage. The strike tore out the middle third of the season*, so the Phillies, Dodgers, A's, and Yankees (the division leaders when they walked out) were, when play resumed, crowned after-the-fact first-half division champs . The final third of the season became a second half. Kudos on your homework, guys. :)

Pete Rose of the Phillies spent the strike tied with Stan Musial as the NL's all time career hit getter. Rose moved ahead of Stan the Man in the Phils' season reopener. I got a last minute call from my restaurant where I cleaned plates to come in that night, thus missing history, and I'm still bitter about it. ):(

ixnay
Click to expand...

If memory serves me right(and it might not, I was just a 4th grader that fall) if it had just been the LCS there would have only been one game that day due to the fact that only one LCS started on Tuesday in those days. After the LDS in 1981 for some reason they started both of the LCS the following Tuesday as you likely know. :D
 
ixnay said:
Baseball coverage would probably have been affected strike or no strike. The NL and ALCS's would've been going on at that time if there had been no stoppage. The strike tore out the middle third of the season*, so the Phillies, Dodgers, A's, and Yankees (the division leaders when they walked out) were, when play resumed, crowned after-the-fact first-half division champs . The final third of the season became a second half. Kudos on your homework, guys. :)

Pete Rose of the Phillies spent the strike tied with Stan Musial as the NL's all time career hit getter. Rose moved ahead of Stan the Man in the Phils' season reopener. I got a last minute call from my restaurant where I cleaned plates to come in that night, thus missing history, and I'm still bitter about it. ):(

ixnay
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Off topic but on the 2nd night I went to a game. We lived about 90 miles from the Twin Cities and the Twins opened play after the strike against Oakland. My mom wanted to see the A's because she liked Billy Martin and he was the manager of Oakland at the time. We also saw the last game before the strike in June against Detroit and it was helmet night and they helped because it rained in Bloomington that June night. So I came within one game of seeing the last game before the strike and the 1st game after the strike.
 
danderson6500 said:
What really hampered the networks was that the fact that Cairo television had gone abruptly off the air, so the major networks didn't have any footage to use. Unlike when the Pope was shot, where they had footage right off the bat.
Click to expand...

"Black Out Like an Egyptian" :)

I imagine the government had/has a monopoly on Egyptian TV. Anyone remember why the plug was pulled? Imagine that happening on *all* American telly soon after 12:30 CT on November 22, 1963.

ixnay
 
ixnay said:
"Black Out Like an Egyptian" :)

I imagine the government had/has a monopoly on Egyptian TV. Anyone remember why the plug was pulled? Imagine that happening on *all* American telly soon after 12:30 CT on November 22, 1963.

ixnay
Click to expand...

According to the Washington Post Egyptian State TV went off the air after the attempt and didn't come back on until official confirmation of Sadat's death was announced.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/arch...b38-b590-16cc7180586e/?utm_term=.3e7f4ba4ae4b
 
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