News 1963, 2020

 1963

"Haven't you heard, the president has been killed?" I am in a phone booth outside our flat in Stuttgart Germany talking to the man who one day will be my ex-husband. He is pulling extra guard duty for a few dollars. We live in Germany because he's in an Army band. At the time there was the draft and every able-bodied male had to serve. My ex had volunteered to ensure he could still play his music. He had played for Kennedy during the famous "jelly donut speech."

"I've been out all day. At that point we didn't have a phone or a television. We do have a radio. I rush upstairs to tune in AFN (Armed Forces Network). There are bulletins between somber music.

When my husband comes back from Kelley Barracks the next morning with the Stars and Stripes, the Army newspaper, I read avidly about what happened. I can't get much more information than is in the newspaper. 

When I go out to buy the German papers, the newsdealer expresses his sympathy for me as an American. That night there is a vigil down the hill leading into the city. Hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of Germans carrying candles. 

Gunther, our neighbor and a university student, invites us to watch the news showing snippets of Kennedy's funeral.

Several days later in the Jay Hawk Movie theater on Base we see a newsreel of the funeral: the horse with the backward boots and John-John's salute. 

I feel bereft both over Kennedy's death and my lack of information.

Only years later did I get to see Walter Cronkite's announcement of the shooting and Kennedy's death that interrupted As the World Turns twice. 

I cry. I think how lucky I was to record the Kennedy Nixon debates on the tape recorder which was one of my high school graduation present. When we return home to Reading, MA, my brother has recorded over them. Living history has been lost to me, I think.

2020

Today's 7/24 news availability is a far cry from 1963.

I watch the helicopter which will take the president to Walter Reed Hospital in real time. Not only do I watch it in Collonge-Bellerive, Switzerland on CNN, I can watch it on several other American channels as well as news stations from the UK, France, Germany, Dubai, China, Russia and Japan. 

Whether I believe the many contradictory stories is not that important. I hear them as they are being spoken complete with video or in real time. I do not have to wait for a newspaper or a newsreel shown in a military movie theater some days later.

I am neither limited to a source nor medium . I can watch the news on the TV, my telephone, my iPad. 

I also watched the disgusting debate in real time with a choice of international networks. It was 3 a.m. so I was in bed with my dog and new husband. I could have recorded them on the TV and many other technologies. I don't. I know I have access to interpretations from all over the world any time I want. 

I can even watch the debate I thought I'd lost many decades before on Youtube.

News at my fingertips. In 1963 I never dreamed that in 2020 I would be able to find information in real time from the past. I just wish mankind had made the same developments in human social inter-reaction as they did in technology.