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Network news in the "golden age"

I

installLSC

I've got a couple of questions about network radio and news in the pre-1960 era.
--When did network news start?
--I've read that neither Pearl Harbor or D-Day had that much disruption on network schedules, with bulletins arriving when needed. Why wasn't there saturation coverage in those days, and when did lengthy breaking news coverage start?
 
For an excellent brief summary of radio news in that era, I'd like to recommend the book "On The Air: The Encyclopedia of Old-Time Radio," by John Dunning. The section "News Broadcasts" contains an overview of the history of radio news, and an alphabetical listing of many of the major reporters and commentators.

News was part of radio literally from the beginning, and regularly scheduled network newscasts were on at least as early as 1929 over CBS. I'm sure bulletin-type coverage could and did extend into longer forms even then. (D-Day apparently did receive massive network coverage, and is referred to by Dunning as the day radio news "came of age.")
 
installLSC said:
Why wasn't there saturation coverage in those days, and when did lengthy breaking news coverage start?
Click to expand...

To have "saturation coverage," you need something to report, and access to information. There have been a lot of documentaries on both Pearl Harbor and D-Day. These were both military operations that were intended to be surprises. Pearl Harbor was a military base. The attack on it was a controlled story. The networks didn't have reporters stationed at Pearl to provide on-scene reports. The President didn't actually address the country about Pearl Harbor until the next day! Same with D-Day. This was a controlled military operation, and the media wasn't informed about it. By the time they knew, it was over, and they got the story they were given. Today, we see battles as they take place. I remember watching the invasion of Baghdad at the start of the Iraq War. They called it "shock & awe," but I watched it on CNN. The element of surprise was taken away. Vietnam was the first war that was fought on TV. It took a lot of reporters, a lot of money, and the support of the Pentagon to get it done. That took a while. The kind of saturation coverage we know about today took time and money to build. You need experts to be willing to speak about the topics. Otherwise it's just a bunch of speculation. You need reporters on scene. Otherwise it's just a bunch of people in a studio thousands of miles away. The newspapers had the infrastructure to do this, but their reporting took time, and wasn't immediately available.

The JFK assassination had saturation coverage because of the number of reporters in Dallas at the time, and the access they were given by the local police. Not so in 1941 or 1944. A lot of the time on the networks were filled with somber music, waiting for the next bulletin or report. My family talks of sitting around the radio all night, waiting for news of Pearl Harbor, and what it would mean. But that news didn't come quickly. By dinner, the story was already 6 hours old, but nothing more was known, other than the attack happened. The extent of it was a military secret. The details took a long time to come out. So it's hard to do saturation coverage we know today without the tools we have today.
 
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