Eddie Barker (left), the first reporter to announce the news of President John F. Kennedy‘s assassination in 1963, died Monday at a Dallas nursing home. He was 84.
At the time of Kennedy’s death, Barker was the news director of KRLD, the CBS-affiliate in Dallas. (KRLD is now KDFW, the market’s Fox O&O.) He received confirmation from a friend of his that worked at Parkland Memorial Hospital, where Kennedy was taken after he was shot, and reported it on the air. Barker later said he had no idea at the time that CBS had picked up the local affiliate’s newscast.
Barker joined KRLD when the station launched in 1949. He left the station in 1972 and launched a public relations firm, ultimately retiring in 1994. Watch KDFW’s report on Barker’s death after the jump…