>> seemed like almost sort of a willful respite from the stuff going on out in the world in real life. >> here's a bulletin from cbs news. there has been an attempt as perhaps you know now on the life of president kennedy. he was wounded in an automobile driving from -- >> until the early '60s, television used by and large backwater to print journalism and even to radio. the kennedy assassination was the moment that television journalism came of age. >> we'll continue the coverage of the funeral and final procession -- >> more and more people, depending on television to give them the headline views of the day. >> 330 americans killed in combat last week in vietnam, but the number of wounded, 3,886. >> most of the 1960s, the contrast of what you saw on the entertainment and the news was, you know, planetary.