Forty years ago, on December 8th, 1980, the music world was forever changed following the assassination of John Lennon, who was shot dead outside his Dakota apartment building in New York by deranged fan Mark David Chapman.
Steve North, a reporter working for The Daily Beast, believes that he was the first to report on the history-defining moment. In a retrospective piece published in light of the 40th anniversary of the John Lennon assassination, North has recalled the harrowing day.
As fate would have it, North was preparing a report on gun control for the Long Island WLIR radio station when a fledgling reporter alerted him of the rumours that Lennon had been shot.
North recalls, “one of the station’s student interns burst into the studio, red-faced and breathless” to break the news. In an adrenaline-fuelled haze North “grabbed an AP wire with the same sketchy information” disseminated the rumour on-air before contacting a police officer “who provided more details on the shooting, but could not confirm the fate or identity of the victim.”
In a series of follow-up phone conversations after the broadcast, the same officer “said, on tape, that the victim was tentatively identified as Lennon, he was in serious condition, and the gunman had been apprehended.”
The officer confirmed shortly after that Lennon had been shot “and that he’s dead.”
In a subsequent broadcast, North recalls that he “repeated what the cop had just told me.” Thus making North the first journalist to confirm the death of John Lennon.
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North reflected that reporting on the news left him in a state where he “literally could not speak.”
“The enormity of what had just happened not only to Lennon, but to every member of my generation, suddenly dawned on me,” he mused.
Following the broadcast, WLIR hosted an evening in tribute to Lennon. Compiling a playlist of Beatles songs and Lennon’s solo music, North heard a recording of the fateful broadcast for the first time this year.
“Hearing it nearly 40 years later literally sent a chill down my spine,” he reflects. “In the 40 years since his murder, I have never once heard John Lennon’s voice without thinking of that awful night.”
The following day, North aired his “unexpectedly timely report on gun control, and told the audience that what had occurred on West 72nd Street should be unacceptable in a civilized society.”
You can read the piece in its entirety here.
Listen to ‘IMAGINE’ by John Lennon:
