ABSTRACT
Throughout this book we have explored the complex and varied relationships in which humans and technologies become embroiled once they join together in the construction of news. Nowhere are these relationships more significant than in the process of reporting live from a scene beyond the cosy confines of the newsroom or studio. If we recall our intrepid CBS newsmen, who reported the live shooting of Lee Harvey Oswald using what would be considered today to be prehistoric and impossibly unwieldy technical equipment, for them the individual relationships they managed to make with the technologies they were using were just as significant to the news event as anything that was unfolding before their eyes. As Bob Huffaker recalls
As Nelson and I kept reporting through that long Saturday, we were concerned not only with facts, but also pictures. KRLD’s news man George Phenix was shooting with his big Auricon optical-sound camera, and Nelson and I were trying to get as much video as possible on our live cameras. Rather than breaking into the day’s sad and unrelenting news with brief shots of Oswald’s passing, we taped them for later broadcast.
