General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Octafish to attend JFK assassination conference. Do you think JFK still matters? [View all]dflprincess
(28,075 posts)my grandpa had similar movie camera and if he had had the chance to film a presidential motorcade he would have.
It was in the days before the 24 hour news cycle and JFK's trip to Dallas was just a routine political trip. It's not surprising at all that the networks weren't out there filming it. Even the local news outlets probably covered his speeches rather than the motorcade and even if they filmed some of it, the spot where the shooting took place probably wasn't the best spot.
TV was still pretty primitive at the time. I remember Walter Cronkite saying (in later years) that it took 20 minutes to warm a camera up and that's why they could only show a still picture (graphic would sound too sophisticated to call it) of a teleype machine when they broke in with the first bulletins about the shooting. They actually had to wire Washington to cover the ceremonies at the Capital, Church and Arlington as well as the processions to the various sites.
There are a lot of things that are suspicious about that weekend - including what happened to the cameras and pictures that were taken from people in the area - but the lack of network coverage during the Dallas motorcade isn't one of them.