6 May 1937
“Oh, the humanity”
Networks did not record. NBC and CBS both banned recorded material on the air as a matter of policy, so news happened live or it did not happen at all. WLS Chicago had sent Herbert Morrison and engineer Charlie Nehlsen to Lakehurst to cut a routine feature onto acetate discs. Thirty-four seconds after the airship caught, Morrison was describing something no one had ever described into a recording machine before, and the disc kept turning while he broke down. NBC waived its own rule and put it on the network the next day. Every recorded news report since descends from that afternoon.
2 recordings · 2 broadcasters
Who carried it
6 May
1937
Archive recordings
1 min
Herbert Morrison's eyewitness description of the Hindenburg's destruction at Lakehurst, New Jersey, recorded to disc for WLS Chicago on 6 May 1937 and broadcast the following day — the first recording of a news event ever aired on an American network.
6 May
1937
Archive recordings
1 min
A second surviving transfer of the Lakehurst disc recording, held by the Internet Archive.