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Living Radio Reporters who covered JFK assassination

W

willcall1985

Listening to the hours of coverage from 22nd November 1963 got me wonderiñg how many of the radio anchors and reporters are still with us today?
 
It being 55 years ago, the answer is not many. The obvious one is Dan Rather. Also Robert McNeil, who was with NBC at the time.
 
I was wondering about Roger Mudd. He was with CBS starting in 1961 but I don't see anything regarding him with the JFK assassination. He's 90.
 
This is not a joke but Bill Mercer(yes of WCCW wrestling) was working for KRLD at the time and helped cover the JFK assassination on the local level
 
Pierce Allman, the WFAA radio/TV reporter (also PD of the radio operation at the time) who famously recalled getting directions to a pay phone from Oswald as he was fleeing the School Book depository, is still alive, I believe. He looks good for a guy in his 80s.

Not sure about Sid Davis, who covered the assassination for the Westinghouse stations. One website claims he died in 1997, but that seems to be erroneous as he's been interviewed a number of times since. If he is alive today, he'd be 91.

Orion Samuelson, who broke the news on WGN Chicago during his farm news show on 11/22/63, is still with us at age 84. So is WTIC Hartford's Dick Bertel (now 87), who was on the air playing Mantovani records (his normal "Americana" music show having been cancelled because of the tragic news) when NBC Radio's continuous coverage began. (The station had broken the news about 20-25 minutes earlier during the "Mikeline" talk/advice show.)

In the Detroit Top 40 radio history book "Rockin' Down the Dial", Jay Butler, who worked at R&B powerhouse WJLB (then at 1400 AM) in 1963, tells of how he was on the air when the news broke and felt he should tone down his show but had to defer to station management who wanted him to continue as usual. As a result, Butler took many calls from angry listeners upset at his "disrespect." Butler may be one of the few people on the air at that time who is still in broadcasting today, hosting a weekend show on public station WDET-FM.
 
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