The Kennedy Tapes 1983 WFAA-TV Dallas TX (Orlando, FL)

The Kennedy Tapes 1983 WFAA-TV Dallas TX

This was a Dallas-only TV special which runs about 17 hours and was broadcast over three nights on the 20th anniversary of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. It was never repeated or released on home video and contains much footage which had never been seen since their original broadcast in 1963. WFAA was the first station to break the news that President Kennedy had been assassinated on November 22 1963 about two blocks north of the television station near Dealey Plaza outside the Texas School Book Depository. The station conducted the first live television interview with Abraham Zapruder who shot the famous Zapruder film which was processed at WFAA s photo lab about an hour and a half after the President s death. WFAA and its live remote unit fed much coverage of the assassination and its aftermath to the ABC network over the next four days. The station had been lucky it had just received a shipment of videotape and had nearly 40 hours available (at a cost of about 10 000). The ABC network at that time was a distant third with both people and equipment so WFAA was forced to originate far more local cut-ins than the other network affiliates in fact ABC taped none of its own coverage So the over-30 hours kept by WFAA is all that remains of that weekend (the little news film shot by ABC photographers is still available). Except for the commercial breaks which were few and occasional on-camera commentary by news anchor Tracy Rowlett it is 1963 all over again. In 2010 WFAA-TV donated these tapes to the Sixth Floor Museum in Dallas which occupies the space formerly known as the Texas School Book Depository. However the tapes are only partially available for viewing at the museum. 7 DVDs.