30-year-old Tribute to Slain NBC'ers in Jonestown

[Randy Steinman]

With this week marking 30 years since Jonestown, I did some surfing on YouTube tonight. Came across this November 19, 1978 report (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RGKcCqr88rM&feature=related) on the deaths of NBC reporter Don Harris and photographer Bob Brown.

While some of it would probably be considered overdone today (note the Caplin SOT and the :40 Perkins' S/U near the end), it's refreshing to see hints of old-school reporting all these years later.

[Jane Craig]

Thanks, Randy. That sure took me back -- especially the part at the end, which was NBC's first report of the discovery of unfathomable numbers of bodies at Jonestown.

[Sigonfile]

Saw it on MSNBS this afternoon. I remember all that stuff from the late 70's. Lots of interviews with "survivors" of the cult.

[Diplomat]

One of the survivors, Jackie Speier, is now a member of Congress. She survived several other personal tragedies after Jonestown and before her election.

[Kace]

I watched it earlier on MSNBC. Amazing how so few were able to make it out of there alive.

[TVMattNYC]

I watched it earlier on MSNBC. Amazing how so few were able to make it out of there alive.

Indeed.

It's frightening how easily the masses can be influenced by a little charisma, slick rhetoric, and a LOT of empty promises.

Oh wait ... that just happened THIS November, too.

:(

[Sultanosurf]

Yeah, thanks, Randy. I got a kick out of seeing Warren Olney (!) doing the breaker, and his "We don't know" lines, which would probably be anathema for today's newsrooms.

It's another reminder that when field crews leave the newsroom, they step into the unknown. Something that people safely in the studio never can grasp.

I wonder what the rest of Don Harris' career would've been like? (Leo Ryan, too) Somehow, I don't think Harris would've gone the Keith Morrison route, but who knows.

From a personal reference, I was in Northern California at the time, and Jonestown and the Moscone/Milk shootings were a surreal one-two punch. I never saw the Harris/Brown tribute because we were too overwhelmed by the wave of victim stories that wasn't really surpassed until OKC and 9/11.

The tribute showed a measure of class that is sorely lacking these days.



(And TVMatt, we get that you're pissed at the election, but really...)