NBC News

===Huntley-Brinkley era===
[[File:NBC logo 1954.svg|thumb|The NBC logo in 1954]]
[[File:NBC News promotional photo 1961.JPG|thumb|NBC News had close to 700 correspondents and cameramen in 1961 who were stationed throughout the world. Film was received in the United States by plane or by the jointly operated NBC-[[BBC]] transatlantic film cable.]]
[[File:David Brinkley 1962.JPG|thumb|[[David Brinkley]], one of the network's first anchors]]
Television assumed an increasingly prominent role in American family life in the late 1950s, and NBC News was called television's "champion of news coverage."<ref>{{Cite book|last=Manchester|first=William|title=The Death of a President|url=https://archive.org/details/deathofpresiden00manc|url-access=limited|location=New York|publisher=Harper & Row|year=1967|page=[https://archive.org/details/deathofpresiden00manc/page/190 190]|author-link=William Manchester}}</ref> NBC president [[Robert Kintner]] provided the news division with ample amounts of both financial resources and air time.<ref name="Matusow"/> In 1956, the network paired anchors [[Chet Huntley]] and [[David Brinkley]] and the two became celebrities,<ref name="Whitworth"/> supported by reporters including [[John Chancellor]], [[Frank McGee (journalist)|Frank McGee]], [[Edwin Newman]], [[Sander Vanocur]], [[Nancy Dickerson]], [[Tom Pettit]], and Ray Scherer.

Created by Producer [[Reuven Frank]], NBC's ''[[The Huntley–Brinkley Report]]'' had its debut on October 29, 1956.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/2003/06/13/journalist-helped-usher-in-heyday-of-network-news/6960cc59-67b1-4b01-93ff-6fef486c454e/|title=Journalist Helped Usher In Heyday of Network News|last=Barnes|first=Bart|date=June 13, 2003|newspaper=The Washington Post}}</ref> During much of its 14-year run, it exceeded the viewership levels of its CBS News competition, anchored initially by [[Douglas Edwards]] and, beginning in April 1962, by [[Walter Cronkite]].

NBC's Vice President of News and Public Affairs, J. Davidson Taylor, was a Southerner who, with Producer Reuven Frank, was determined that NBC would lead television's coverage of the [[civil rights movement]].<ref name="RobertsAndKlibanoff">{{Cite book|last1=Roberts|first1=Gene|last2=Klibanoff|first2=Hank|title=The Race Beat: The Press, the Civil Rights Struggle, and the Awakening of a Nation|url=https://archive.org/details/racebeatpressciv00gene|url-access=limited|location=New York|publisher=Alfred A. Knopf|year=2006|page=[https://archive.org/details/racebeatpressciv00gene/page/155 155]|isbn=9780679403814|author-link=Gene Roberts (journalist)}}</ref> In 1955, NBC provided national coverage of [[Martin Luther King Jr.]]'s leadership of the [[Montgomery bus boycott]] in [[Montgomery, Alabama]], airing reports from Frank McGee, then News Director of NBC's Montgomery affiliate [[WSFA|WSFA-TV]], who would later join the network.<ref name="Halberstam"/> A year later, John Chancellor's coverage of the [[Little Rock Nine|admission of black students]] to [[Little Rock Central High School|Central High School]] in [[Little Rock, Arkansas]] was the first occasion when the key news story came from television rather than print<ref name="Halberstam">{{Cite book|last=Halberstam|first=David|title=[[The Fifties (book)|The Fifties]]|location=New York|publisher=Villard Books|year=1993|author-link=David Halberstam}}</ref> and prompted a prominent U.S. senator to observe later, "When I think of Little Rock, I think of John Chancellor."<ref name="Frank"/>  Other reporters who covered the movement for the network included Sander Vanocur, Herbert Kaplow, Charles Quinn, and Richard Valeriani,<ref name="RobertsAndKlibanoff"/> who was hit with an ax handle at a demonstration in [[Marion, Alabama]] in 1965.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Raines|first=Howell|title=My Soul Is Rested: Movement Days in the Deep South Remembered|location=New York|publisher=G.P. Putnam's Sons|year=1971|pages=371–72}}</ref>

While Walter Cronkite's enthusiasm for the space race eventually won the anchorman viewers for CBS and NBC News, with the work of correspondents such as Frank McGee, Roy Neal, [[Jay Barbree]], and [[Peter Hackes]], also provided ample coverage of American crewed space missions in the [[Project Mercury]], [[Project Gemini]], and [[Project Apollo]] programs. In an era when space missions rated continuous coverage, NBC configured its largest studio, [[NBC Studios (New York City)|Studio 8H]], for space coverage. It utilized models and mockups of rockets and spacecraft, maps of the Earth and Moon to show orbital trackage, and stages on which animated figures created by puppeteer [[Bil Baird]] were used to depict movements of astronauts before on-board spacecraft television cameras were feasible. (Studio 8H had been home to the [[NBC Symphony Orchestra]] and is now the home of ''[[Saturday Night Live]].'') NBC's coverage of the [[Apollo 11|first Moon landing]] in 1969 earned the network an [[Emmy Award]].<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.nbcnews.com/id/5462500|title=The Moments before the Eagle Landed|publisher=NBC News|date=July 20, 2004|first=Jay|last=Barbree}}</ref>

In the late 1950s, Kintner reorganized the chain of command at the network, making [[William R. McAndrew|Bill McAndrew]] president of NBC News, reporting directly to Kintner.<ref name="Frank"/>  McAndrew served in that position until his death in 1968.<ref name="Frank"/> McAndrew was succeeded by his Executive Vice President, Producer Reuven Frank, who held the position until 1973.<ref name="Frank"/>

On November 22, 1963, NBC interrupted various programs on its affiliate stations at 1:45&nbsp;p.m. to announce that [[Assassination of John F. Kennedy|President John F. Kennedy had been shot]] in [[Dallas]], [[Texas]]. Eight minutes later, at 1:53:12&nbsp;p.m., NBC broke into programming with a network bumper slide and [[Chet Huntley]], [[Bill Ryan (journalist)|Bill Ryan]] and [[Frank McGee (journalist)|Frank McGee]] informing the viewers what was going on as it happened; but since a camera was not in service, the reports were audio-only. However, NBC did not begin broadcasting over the air until 1:57&nbsp;p.m. ET. About 40 minutes later, after word came that JFK was pronounced dead, NBC suspended regular programming and carried 71 hours of uninterrupted news coverage of the assassination and the [[State funeral of John F. Kennedy|funeral]] of the president—including the only live broadcast of the fatal shooting of Kennedy's assassin, [[Lee Harvey Oswald]], by [[Jack Ruby]] as Oswald was being led in handcuffs by law-enforcement officials through the basement of Dallas Police Headquarters.<ref>{{cite book|author=NBC News|title=There Was a President|location=New York|publisher=Random House|year=1966}}</ref>
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