Allan Jackson (December 4, 1915 – April 26, 1976) was an American radio broadcaster. He was the head anchor at

CBS Radio CBS Radio was a radio broadcasting company and radio network operator owned by CBS Corporation and founded in 1928, with consolidated radio station groups owned by CBS and Westinghouse Broadcasting/Group W since the 1920s, and Infinity Broadc ...

News in New York City. Jackson, born in Hot Springs, Arkansas and an alumnus of the University of Illinois, began his 33-year career during the Second World War, reading the 6:00 PM national evening news (then the network's main news program) and anchoring coverage of many of the major news headlines of the day. He anchored CBS News's coverage of the

D-Day The Normandy landings were the landing operations and associated airborne operations on Tuesday, 6 June 1944 of the Allied invasion of Normandy in Operation Overlord during World War II. Codenamed Operation Neptune and often referred to as D ...

invasion on June 6, 1944, of the joining of US and Soviet forces in April 1945, and of V-E Day in May of that year, then the Berlin Airlift in 1948. Jackson was one of the first national radio newscasters to announce the assassination of John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963. According to former CBS News Correspondent Dan Rather in his book ''The Camera Never Blinks'' and in the 2003 book ''President Kennedy Has Been Shot'', Rather had advised CBS News headquarters in New York from Dallas that there were unconfirmed reports that the President was dead. Jackson was handed a slip of paper reading "JFK DEAD" and immediately went on air with the announcement, reporting Kennedy's death as a fact (which had not yet been confirmed, although it was true that Kennedy was already dead), and playing the U.S. national anthem, '' The Star-Spangled Banner.'' In 1974, Great Oaks Broadcasting, a company part-owned by Jackson, purchased radio station WAKC in Normal, Illinois. A year later, Jackson retired from CBS to devote himself to the station. After two weeks in a hospital, Jackson died April 26, 1976, of complications following gall bladder surgery. His son, David, was also a correspondent with CBS News.

References

Sources

Earth Station 1 coverage of the Kennedy assassination
including clips of Allan Jackson's announcement
Real Audio file of the announcement
from Earth Station 1

of CBS Radio's coverage of the assassinations of President Kennedy and of Robert F. Kennedy in 1968, as heard on WCCO Radio in

Minneapolis, Minnesota Minneapolis () is the largest city in Minnesota, United States, and the county seat of Hennepin County. The city is abundant in water, with thirteen lakes, wetlands, the Mississippi River, creeks and waterfalls. Minneapolis has its origins ...

. Jackson is heard anchoring coverage of both tragedies. *Dan Rather, ''The Camera Never Blinks'', Ballantine Books, New York, 1978 {{DEFAULTSORT:Jackson, Allan 1915 births 1976 deaths American male journalists American radio personalities American radio reporters and correspondents