The NBC News Night Report
February 23rd, 1967
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| Curator's note: The streaming video below is offered as a resource for students, practitioners and observers of television journalism who wish to ponder how the craft has evolved over the thirty-seven years since this broadcast aired on Chicago's WMAQ-TV. Many will find it instructive to compare this broadcast to the last 10pm newscast aired from the Merchandise Mart studios on September 30th, 1989 (featuring anchor Art Norman) and the first 10pm newscast from the NBC Tower (featuring anchors Carol Marin and Ron Magers). |
Introduction...
| February 23rd, 1967 was a heavy news day by any measure. Four inches of snow fell during the evening rush hour on a city that was still digging out from record-breaking blizzard of January 26/27. A strike by Cook County Hospital nurses that would have shut down the primary care facility for the city's poor was narrowly averted. "Operation Junction City", the largest operation to date in the Vietnamese war, had been launched earlier in the day. A select committee of the U.S. House of Representatives had voted to censure and fine New York Congressman Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. The presumed boss of Chicago's organized crime syndicate appeared in Federal court. And there was more. |
| Who
better to handle all this than WMAQ-TV primary news anchor Floyd Kalber? He was
at the zenith of his career and, in minds of some, on the verge of leaving Chicago
for the NBC network. (At the end of January he'd filled in for a week as co-host
of the "Today Show" in New York, leading to speculation that he'd soon
be tapped permanently for the job.) Floyd was a solo anchor at this point. He even handled sports. There were no reporter packages. Floyd did it all---with the exception of weather (handled by Harry Volkman who breezed into Chicago from Tulsa in 1959 to replace pioneer television meterologist Clint Youle, who'd priced himself out of the market) and commentary (delivered by Len O'Connor who'd been at NBC-Chicago seemingly forever). |
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| In 1967, local
stories were shot on film; material fed from the network was recorded on two-inch
videotape. Note that rolling (and stopping) the tape machines touches off the
electronic equivalent of a seismic event. This broadcast survives on a black-and-white kinescope recording, though the program originally aired in color. I have no idea why this particular broadcast was thus recorded. Perhaps it was designed to be part of an awards submission. In any case, enjoy! And learn! |
The
broadcast...
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Created by
Rich Samuels (e-mail to rich@richsamuels.com)