Though it's easy enough to avoid the evening news these days, I would imagine there are quite a few Americans who are getting tired of the run up to the anniversary of President Kennedy's death. I was very young in September 1951 when the 50th anniversary of William McKinley's death from assassination occurred. I probably saw the evening news that day, since my parents watched. Like Kennedy's anniversary this year, it was on a Friday. The news may have mentioned it was the anniversary of McKinley's death, though I certainly don't remember. But certainly there was no weeks-long run up. 1901 seemed very long ago and far away, though there were a good many people in 1951 who still remembered 1901.

If I remember correctly a short motion picture clip of William McKinley walking through the Buffalo Exposition did exist. But it would be one of a very few motion picture records of him. I think perhaps I've also seen a brief clip, silent of course, of him making his second inaugural speech. But other than that I've only seen a few still pictures of the man. So there wouldn't be a lot of film to show on the TV news. Remember, too, that there wasn't a lot of time on the early TV news for nostalgia or reflexion. Till the early 1960s, the national news was only 15 minutes long in the evening.

Young people these days might get a mistaken impression of John Kennedy as a President from the anniversary hoopla, especially since some of the people making up the tributes aren't old enough to remember. The PBS shows and news segments do however give a good perception of how he was perceived at the time. John Kennedy was without a doubt the news media's all time favorite President. And he was very popular with much of the public including me in those days.

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