You Think What

You Think What proudly presents a series of remembrances of a television news director’s career. Max A. Schindler worked for the NBC News Bureau in Washington, D.C. for many years. In this second article he describes directing news coverage of a gathering of mostly black civil rights activists in the nation’s capital. This time Max tells the reader what it was like to be present while capturing the televised images of a truly American historic event.

View From The Control Room Segment#2
by Max A. Schindler
The March on Washington

August 28, 1963

The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom was a large rally in support of equal rights for African Americans.  There were somewhere between 200,000 to 300,000 people who participated.  Approximately 75 to 80 percent were African Americans…the rest were white and other minorities.  It was estimated over 500 cameramen, technicians and correspondents were there to cover this event for the networks and news media.  I was there with my crew to cover the major speeches at the Lincoln Memorial.  Other crews were in various locations all over the grounds at the Washington Monument, where the march was to begin, and along the mall in between the two memorials.

The leaders of the march were A. Philip Randolph, James Farmer, John Lewis, Martin Luther King, Jr., Roy Wilkins and Whitney Young.  The event included musical performances by Marion Anderson, Joan Baez, Mahalia Jackson; Peter, Paul and Mary and Josh White.  Charlton Heston representing many artists…Harry Belafonte, Marlon Brando, Ossie Davis, Sammy Davis, Jr., Diahann Carroll, Lena Horne, Paul Newman and Sidney Poitier…gave a speech on behalf of all of them.

The speech that will be long remembered, though, is the famous “I Have A Dream” speech by Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.  (more…)

You Think What proudly presents a series of remembrances of a television news director’s career. Max A. Schindler worked for the NBC News Bureau in Washington, D.C. for many years. In this first article he describes directing news coverage following the Kennedy assassination; what it was like to be present while capturing the televised images of JFK’s coffin being removed from Air Force One upon its arrival at Andrews Air Force Base. How he felt as an eyewitness to history on that mournful November day in 1963  for all Americans, and people around the world.

View From The Control Room Segment#1

by Max A. Schindler

November 22, 1963

I was in my car on my way to work, about 4 or 5 blocks from the NBC News Bureau in Washington, DC. . At a red light a woman in the car next to me was screaming…I rolled down my window and she said “Turn on your radio”.  I turned on the radio and heard that President John Kennedy and Governor John Connally had been shot in Dallas, Texas.  I drove to the bureau and raced into the newsroom. It was chaotic and people were running around…many were not sure of what to do. The bureau chief told me to have my wife pack a bag, for an untold number of days, and to send it by cab. A plane had been chartered to take a group of us to Dallas for the coverage. Before my bag arrived we heard the special news bulletin  the President of the United States, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, was dead. (more…)