The Longest Night: Broadcasting's First Invasion

"had an experience they will remember to their graves." I therefore propose to consider D-Day not as a military battle but as a "media event," one that produced the first defining triumph of modern broadcast journalism. D-Day was made for the electronic mass medium. Five years of global warfare had come to a climactic collision of primal forces; a battle to the death between good and evil in which for a few perilous early hours the fortunes of civilization seemed to dangle by a spider's strand. It was Roosevelt's "rendezvous with destiny" fulfilled. "In years to come," said Lowell Thomas in the manner of Henry V on St. Crispin's Day, "history will tell again and again of this day, June 6, invasion day." Broadcasting magazine called it "the biggest story since Creation." But, alas, Creation received only print coverage. D-Day was radio's invasion.