The world is wildly different than it was in 1963. Men have stood on the moon. Beatlemania has come and gone and a little thing called the World Wide Web has since changed the face of most everything. News is still broadcast on TV…and radio…and print…and online…and via mobile phone.

Though the way we see, and now interact with news, has changed in the past fifty years, CBS News is revisiting one of the biggest stories of the past century this week: President John F. Kennedy’s assassination.

CBS News is streaming original coverage from November 22, 1963 as it happened in real time on CBSNews.com and continuing throughout the weekend as a tribute to those four days that changed a nation, culminating with President Kennedy’s funeral. To supplement the real-time reports, pieces on Kennedy’s presidency and topics such as the Space Race, civil rights and foreign policy will be featured.

This idea is not only mega awesome for its historical value, but from a branding standpoint, could serve to elevate CBS News as a premier news network once again, given it’s not perceived as a marketing ploy.

Why it could work:

• CBS Evening News with Scott Pelley has consistently ranked behind NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams and ABC World News with Diane Sawyer in terms of total viewers, however, back in the day, CBS great Walter Cronkite ruled the evening news roost, eventually earning the title “Most Trusted Man in America” through a public opinion poll.
• CBS knows it has pieces of history in its possession and is leveraging them accordingly to remind its audience of its journalistic standards and relevance in the news market today, even after fifty years.
• Although the Internet didn’t exist in 1963, CBS knows that this content will translate online. While live broadcasted TV specials may be an option, it would be near impossible to make four days of nonstop coverage work on the CBS station.
• Not only will CBSNews.com be airing the coverage from 1963, but will be supplementing it with present day accounts and encouraging viewers to interact with CBS and others by utilizing live Twitter and Facebook feeds with Instagram updates. CBS has already publicized the specific hashtag #JFK50 as a reference for the audience to keep up to speed with the reports and include in their own comments.

How it could flop:

• Commenters on early broadcasts and online articles have said they’ll stop watching and interacting if the coverage is overly advertised or feels like a marketing stunt instead of a historical tribute.
• Any sort of insensitivity perceived by the audience toward the topic at hand.
• Is a four-day marathon too much content or an information overload? Definitely possible, but unlikely. CBS released a schedule to let viewers know exactly when things will air, and content will likely live somewhere for on-demand viewing on the website. This is also a one-time event that works great digitally to commemorate a piece of history – not an ongoing series, which could become unwieldy in a long-term content strategy.
• Inconsistencies in branding: While most people who were involved with covering this event are now gone, Dan Rather is still alive and kicking – but was not invited to participate in this coverage. Rather, who got his big break by being likely the first to unofficially announce JFK’s death, would have been a great resource to tap, being the face of the CBS News brand for over 23 years. Other CBS staffers, however, like Bob Schieffer were invited
• Over-editorialized created content. Bias is a quick way to ruin a news agency’s reputation as a brand.

The takeaway:

CBS News is in a great spot to authentically and sincerely repurpose great content, and not make it an overhyped marketing stunt. The goal for CBS News should be to commemorate a piece of history it was a key player in while maintaining its journalistic standards and strength as a branded news agency – any financial or media gains is simply not the point.

Done correctly, this weekend could show the easy transition of video to the online world, how to engage an audience who wasn’t alive fifty years ago to witness the event, demonstrate the change in how we view news and interact with it in 2013 and the reputation of CBS News as a whole.

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