Richard Benedetto Oral History

Object number2018.001.0125

Date10/26/2018

ClassificationsOral Histories

Oral history interview subject Richard Benedetto

Oral history interviewer Stephen Fagin

ObjectOral history

Credit LineOral History Collection/The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza

MediumBorn digital (.wav file)

DimensionsDuration: 50 Minutes

Terms

Collections

DescriptionAudio oral history interview with Richard Benedetto. As a founding staff member of USA Today, Benedetto covered the White House as a political reporter during the Ronald Reagan to George W. Bush administrations. He was attending Syracuse University in New York at the time of the Kennedy assassination in 1963. Interview conducted by telephone on October 26, 2018 by Stephen Fagin. The interview is fifty minutes long.

Curatorial Commentary

Over the last twenty-plus years, I have met potential oral history subjects in a wide variety of places, though my initial encounter with Richard Benedetto was perhaps the most memorable of all because it happened to occur in the East Room of the White House. The two of us were attending the Presidential Sites Summit in Washington, D.C. in 2018. During a reception at the White House, I was very pleased to meet Mr. Benedetto after hearing him speak on a panel about covering multiple presidents for USA Today, and we recorded this interview shortly thereafter. I met another potential subject that evening in the East Room - pioneering journalist Cokie Roberts - and had hoped to eventually bring her to Dallas for a video oral history and Museum public program. Sadly, Ms. Roberts passed away the following year, and we never had the chance to record an interview. - Stephen Fagin, Curator