Eddie Barker's Notebook : Stories That Made the News (and Some Better Ones That Didn't!)

November 22nd, 1963. The John F. Kennedy's assassination. As news director and anchor of KRLD-TV, Channel 4, then the CBS affiliate in Dallas, Eddie Barker stationed himself at the Trade Mart where Kennedy was to speak. Of course, the president never arrived. And so, Barker found himself ad-libbing on the air, knowing that something terrible had happened but not exactly sure of what it was. When a doctor acquaintance from nearby Parkland Hospital whispered the awful news in his ear, Eddie made what has been called "the greatest snap evaluation of a source in broadcasting history." Eddie Barker became the first reporter to announce to America that John F. Kennedy was dead. Certainly Barker's reporting on the assassination and all the other events closely associated with it are at the heart of this book. But this is also a book by one of the true pioneers of local television news as well as being a rich memoir of Dallas from the '50s to the '80s.

Eddie Barker has carved a career that makes him an icon in broadcast journalism. His role in the coverage of the John F. Kennedy assassination is legendary, but only one of the many stories he has covered with distinction. A leading national figure in both radio and television news, Barker is a past president of the Radio Television News Directors Association.John Mark Dempsey is an associate professor of radio-television at Texas A&M University-Commerce. He has published two other books, "The Jack Ruby Trial Revisited: The Diary of Jury Forman Max Causey" and "The Light Crust Doughboys Are On the Air!." He holds bachelor's and master's degrees from East Texas State University and a Ph.D. from Texas A&M Universtiy.