{"id":17743,"date":"2011-01-28T21:38:18","date_gmt":"2011-01-29T03:38:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=17743"},"modified":"2011-01-28T21:51:14","modified_gmt":"2011-01-29T03:51:14","slug":"no-downlink","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=17743","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;We Have No Downlink&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It is, of course, the 25th anniversary of the <em>Challenger <\/em>explosion .<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" class=\"youtube-player\" type=\"text\/html\" width=\"425\" height=\"349\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/cXSiLYuEvFI\" frameborder=\"0\" allowFullScreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>I was in the control room at KSTP-AM, getting ready for the Michael Jackson show to come down the satellite. \u00a0An alert came down the AP wire &#8211; John MacDougall called in to control from the newsroom that &#8220;the shuttle has blown up&#8221;, and that I should monitor the ABC News feed for special coverage. \u00a0It was there; switched over to the live coverage, for a few moments, until we realized there just wasn&#8217;t much to cover. \u00a0We went back to Jackson, in progress, who was covering the explosion non-stop, of course.<\/p>\n<p>I sat, buzzing with adrenaline, as the program continued. \u00a0When Jackson ran out of information &#8211; it didn&#8217;t take long; he went to the phones.<\/p>\n<p>The first call was a smug, unctuous, counterculture-sounding jagoff; &#8220;Yes, Michael, I think we had this coming; it&#8217;s revenge for this nation&#8217;s excessive macho&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>I got as angry as I have ever been in my life; I bit my tongue so hard, trying to concentrate, that I think I drew blood. I don&#8217;t remember.<\/p>\n<p>That night, Reagan gave one of his great speeches.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" class=\"youtube-player\" type=\"text\/html\" width=\"425\" height=\"349\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/5JKIZ7j20EA\" frameborder=\"0\" allowFullScreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>And we needed it.<\/p>\n<p>I needed it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It is, of course, the 25th anniversary of the Challenger explosion . I was in the control room at KSTP-AM, getting ready for the Michael Jackson show to come down the satellite. \u00a0An alert came down the AP wire &#8211; John MacDougall called in to control from the newsroom that &#8220;the shuttle has blown up&#8221;, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17743","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-history-and-its-making"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17743","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17743"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17743\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17752,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17743\/revisions\/17752"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17743"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17743"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17743"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}