Wednesday, August 5, 2009

Another Broadcasting Legend Passes; If Not by Name, By the Indelible Words

This year, there have been many notables passing within the entertainment and radio/TV industries. All have had the respective tributes and special reports garnered. Well earned, considering their impacts and legacies. Most notable, were two giants in the broadcasting industry, Paul Harvey and Walter Cronkite.

However, there is the occasion in which a local event so impacts the world, that the lightening strike is marked not only in the exact time of the event itself, but is recorded for posterity by the source available at the time.

An example of this was WLS reporter, Herb Morrison's May 6, 1937 spontaneous cry, "Oh, the humanities.." in witnessing the Hindenburg disaster. The name to the voice is oblivious, but the impact of the broadcast plays on for infinity.

Sam Pate, a local radio reporter for then KBOX Radio in Dallas, triggered volume knobs to be turned up by being the very first to bring real-time surreal awareness of the earth shaking event of the Kennedy assassination on November 22, 1963. That, by the words, ..."something has happened in the motorcade route...something has apparently happened in the motorcade..there has been a shooting in the motorcade...." in response to police dispatch traffic he was monitoring on the only live Dallas radio report of the motorcade in progress. All others that had been credited were breaking reports, after-the fact actualities that interrupted scheduled programming. (ie; Cronkite's oft replayed report of the death of JFK in his post-mortem tributes last month.)

Sam Pate died August 3rd at age 77, after a long illness. His report lives forever.

Click here to listen to the report.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I am his daught and I appreciate your kind words. He'd love the coverage is finally receiving. Pray that my dad gets the Nobel