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We Interrupt This Broadcast — History
We Interrupt This Broadcast

From six-time New York Times bestselling author Joe Garner, and based on his groundbreaking multimedia book, “We Interrupt This Broadcast,” comes a 12-episode, audio docu-series hosted by broadcast legend Bill Kurtis, and narrated by NBC’s Brian Williams. Each episode unfolds with the brisk pace and tone of a thriller while presenting an in-depth look into the reporting of, and reaction to, the extraordinary events that became the benchmarks of the American story. It is said that “breaking news” is the first draft of history. “We Interrupt This Broadcast” marks the first time the stories of these historical broadcast news events are told exclusively by the broadcasters and TV journalists whose work created those drafts in real-time.

Credits

Hosted by Bill Kurtis & Narrated by Brian Williams

Created, produced and directed by Joe Garner

Written by Mark Rowland, Brian Williams, Colin Madine, and Joe Garner

Sound engineering and design by Paul Bahr, Peachtree Sound

Additional audio engineering provided by Beowulf Rochlen, Two Squared Media Productions

Website and graphics designed by George Vasilopoulos, 921 Associates

Executive Producers are Brian Williams, Ron Hartenbaum, Scott Calka, and Joe Garner

A very special thank you to Donna LaPietra and Diane Anello

A Production of i4 Media Ventures, LLC

www.weinterruptthisbroadcast.org

Copyright: © i4 Media Ventures

Latest Episodes:

The Tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary School Dec 14, 2022

Show notes

Friday, December 14, 2012. It was a clear, crisp, and trouble-free start that morning at Sandy Hook Elementary School. Classrooms filled with kids excited for Christmas, just 11 days away. The school day started, as they always had, with a comforting routine. 9 A M, children settling into their classrooms. 9:10 A M, the pledge of allegiance. 9:15 A M, outside doors…locked. Then came 9:30 A M, when the day and the children’s innocence was shattered. On this 10th remembrance, Brian Williams shares the story as you’ve never heard it before. Told by the by the journalists who covered it, and the parents who suffered through it.

Contributors:

Chris Jansing, anchor for MSNBC

Chris Hansen, former correspondent for Dateline NBC

Connecticut U S Senator Chris Murphy

Ali Velshi, MSNBC anchor, former correspondent for CNN

Nicole Hockley, parent of first grader, Dylan Hockley. Co-founder of Sandy Hook Promise Foundation

Mark Barden, parent of first grader, Daniel Barden. Co-founder of Sandy Hook Promise Foundation

Michael St. Peter, former news director at WVIT TV, NBC Connecticut affiliate

Liz Dahlem, former filed reporter for WVIT TV, NBC Connecticut affiliate

John Senecal, news cameraman for WVIT TV, NBC Connecticut affiliate

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The Oklahoma City Bombing (April 19, 1995) Feb 07, 2022

Show notes

On April 19, 1995, two years to the day following the U.S. government’s botched raid on the Branch Davidian compound near Waco, Texas, a rented truck pulled to the curb in front of the nine story Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in downtown Oklahoma City. Inside the building, about 500 federal employees, and several hundred visitors were beginning their workday. Then, at 9:04 a.m., came the explosion which would alter the American social and political landscape.

Contributors:

Jerry Bohnen, former KTOK News director

David Bohrman, former executive producer of special events for NBC News

Beth O’Connell, former Senior Producer, Today Show

Stewart Dan, former Chicago-based producer, Today Show

Tony Clark, former Dallas Bureau Chief and CNN Correspondent

Trace Ready, former CNN cameraman

Chris Hansen, Investigative news reporter

Stephanie Becker, former Los Angeles-based producer, NBC

Broadcast audio licensed from CNN/WarnerMedia, CBS News, NBC News.

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The Freeway Chase of O. J. Simpson Jan 16, 2022

Show notes

He was an extraordinarily gifted athlete, the premier football player of his time, a California golden child who emerged from abject poverty to win the Heisman trophy in college and set records as a pro football running back. Effortless grace and a ready smile eased his transition from ex-athlete to corporate-backed celebrity. All of that changed on the night of June 13, 1992, when his ex-wife Nicole Simpson, and her friend Ronald Goldman, were found brutally murdered. Evidence gleaned from the murder site suggested that her executioner may well have been O.J. Simpson. But when police decided to arrest Simpson two days later, an even more surreal tableaux unfolded - live on national television in front of 95-million viewers.

Contributors:

Hannah Zoey Tur, an independent helicopter reporter in Los Angeles.

Carl Stein, video journalist for KCBS, Channel 2 in Los Angeles

Diane Dimond, the investigative crime reporter for the television show Hard Copy

Steve Futterman, Los Angeles-based reporter for CBS News Radio.

Broadcast audio licensed from:

NBC News

ABC News

Los Angeles News Service

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The Challenger Disaster Dec 13, 2021

Show notes

The Space Shuttle Challenger flew nine missions into space. But its fateful tenth mission, which lasted only 73 seconds, ensured its tragic place in history. On the morning of January 28, 1986, a crew of seven boarded the Challenger, including a New Hampshire grade school teacher named Christa McAuliffe, representing the aspirations of so-called ‘ordinary’ citizens to journey into space. It was an adventure vicariously shared by millions of Americans through television, as the Challenger lifted off at 11:38a.m. from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida and hurtled majestically into the sky. But less than two minutes later, horror struck in full view of all who watched.

Contributors:

John Zarrella, former CNN Miami Bureau Chief

Tony Clark, former national correspondent for CNN

Beth O’Connell, former coordinator for the NBC Boston Bureau

William Harwood, CBS News space analyst

Steve Nesbitt, the voice of NASA Mission Control

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The Killing of Lee Harvey Oswald Nov 22, 2021

Show notes

Pandemonium reigned in downtown Dallas on the afternoon of November 22, 1963. An assassin's bullet had murdered President John Fitzgerald Kennedy. Within an hour, police had arrested their lead suspect Lee Harvey Oswald, a former Marine and accomplished sharpshooter. On Sunday morning, November 24, with TV cameras in place, and NBC airing it live, Oswald was led through the department's basement for transport to the county jail. And, for the first time, the nation watched an historic national news event - as it happened.

Written by Joe Garner and Brian Williams

Contributors:

Gary DeLaune, formally a reporter for KLIF Radio Dallas

Bill Lord, formerly a producer for ABC News

Ike Pappas, formerly a reporter for WNEW Radio New York

Bob Huffaker, formerly a reporter for KRLD Radio and television and the CBS affiliate in Dallas

Fred Rheinstein, formerly the field director for NBC News

Chad Hagan, formerly a producer for NBC News

Homer Vinso, formerly a cameraman for NBC News

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The War of The Worlds: The original ‘deepfake’ of 1938 Oct 27, 2021

Show notes

“War of The Worlds” is a phenomenon of a bygone era, and of a medium a hundred years old, yet its lessons resonate to this day. It’s the original “deepfake of 1938.” A radio drama about an alien invasion but presented as “breaking news,” scared the daylights out the nation. On the evening of October 30, 1938, radio listeners across the U.S. heard a startling report of mysterious creatures and terrifying war machines moving toward New York City. But the hair-raising broadcast was not a real news bulletin—it was Orson Welles' adaptation of the H. G. Wells classic. This episode goes behind the scenes of the making of Welles' famed radio play and its impact. Welles's broadcast became a major scandal, prompting a different kind of mass panic as Americans debated the bewitching power of the radio and the country's vulnerability in a time of crisis. When the debate was over, American broadcasting had changed for good, but not for the better.

Written by Joe Garner and Brian Williams

Contributors:

A.Brad Schwartz, broadcast historian and author of BROADCAST HYSTERIA: Orson Welles’s War of the Worlds and the Art of Fake News (Hill & Wang, May 2015)

Orson Welles

Howard Koch

John Houseman

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President Reagan shot - “The president was [not?] hit,” – (March 30, 1981) Jul 20, 2021

Show notes

When Ronald Reagan was elected president in November 1980, he hoped to defy an unusually grim circumstance of that office. In the seven previous even-numbered decades, every U.S. President had died in office - four times from assassin’s bullets. A few months later on March 30, 1981, as President Reagan strolled outside the Washington Hilton Hotel, he nearly met the same fate.

Broadcast audio licensed from ABC News Video Source

Contributors:

Sam Donaldson, Former Chief White House correspondent, ABC News
Susan King, Former White House correspondent, ABC News reporter.
Ross Simpson, Former correspondent, Mutual News
David Prosperi, Former Assistant Press Secretary to President Ronald Reagan

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The Hindenburg explosion – “Oh, the Humanity!” – (May 6, 1937) Jul 20, 2021

Show notes

The Hindenburg was an engineering masterpiece, an airship as large and as grand as the Titanic - and as doomed. On May 6, 1937, a young radio reporter named Herbert Morrison was on hand to record the Hindenburg’s arrival at Lakehurst, New Jersey. Instead, Morrison helped radio to broadcast one of modern history’s great disasters, as it suddenly unfolded in all its terrible glory. But even as Morrison’s eyewitness report chronicled the end of one era, it signaled the beginning of another - an age in which electronic media would routinely report shocking events in the moment that they occurred. In addition to the story of the Hindenburg, this serves as a preview of Season 1.

Broadcast audio courtesy of Marc Garabedian, Mark 56 Records

Contributors:

Herbert Morrison
Dr. Michael Biel, renowned broadcast historian.
Mike Freedman, President of National Press Club, Professor at GWU –
Don Hewitt, former CBS News producer (Garner Audio Archive)
Aaron Brown, former CNN anchor(Garner Audio Archive)
John Montone, former reporter for 1010 WINS Radio, New York

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D-Day Invasion “…about to embark up on a great crusade” – (June 6, 1944) Jul 20, 2021

Show notes

It was the biggest overseas military operation in the biggest war in world history - and its best kept secret as well. D Day demonstrated radio’s ability to carry news with clarity and immediacy. And while reporters like Robert Trout, Edward R. Murrow, and Richard C. Hottelet became household names, it was the ingenuity of an NBC stringer reporter named Wright Bryan, who finagled his way aboard a flight of paratroopers and became the first to report the landing.

Contributors:

Howard K. Smith, correspondent, anchor, and original member of “Murrow’s boys”
Daniel Schorr, three-time Emmy winning correspondent, Senior News Analyst for National Public Radio, and part of the later generation of “Murrow's Boys.”
Michael Freedman, Former General Manager of CBS Radio Network News. Professorial Lecturer, GWU School of Media and Public Affairs; Immediate Past President of The National Press Club
Dr. Michael Biel, Renowned broadcast historian.

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JFK Assassination - “In Dallas Texas, three shots were fired…” – (November 22, 1963) Jul 20, 2021

Show notes

He was a man in the prime of life when he traveled to Dallas, Texas in November 1963, on a routine political fence-mending mission to help shore up his chances for re-election as president the following year. At about twenty five minutes past noon on November 22, he was riding in an open convertible with his wife through downtown Dallas, waving to cheering crowds, when the unthinkable occurred - an unforgettable event that would haunt and define the turbulent decade to come.

Broadcast audio licensed from CBS News

Contributors:

Don Hewitt, Former CBS News producer (Garner Audio Archive)
Walter Cronkite, Former CBS News anchor (Courtesy of the Television Academy Foundation Interviews. See the full interviews at TelevisionAcademy.com/Interviews.)
Dan Rather, Former CBS News anchor, KRLD Dallas reporter (Courtesy of the Television Academy Foundation Interviews. See the full interviews at TelevisionAcademy.com/Interviews)
Gary DeLaune, Former reporter for KLIF Radio
Robert MacNeill, Former correspondent for NBC News (Courtesy of the Television Academy Foundation Interviews. See the full interviews at TelevisionAcademy.com/Interviews.)

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