With the 50th anniversary of the JFK assassination approaching, expect a deluge of articles, books, documentaries (including a new four-hour American Experience examination premiering on PBS on 11.11 and 11.12) and even a theatrical re-release of Oliver Stone‘s JFK. Yesterday I watched a four-month-old Newseum discussion of the JFK murder by Robert MacNeil and Jim Lehrer, both of whom were in Dallas that day. Lehrer is openly contemptuous of Stone’s 1991 film, and I must say their refusal to give any credence to conspiracy theories seems a bit smug and stubborn. But they were notepad-and-shoe-leather reporters who were right there — McNeil may have obliviously spoken to Lee Harvey Oswald in the immediate aftermath of the shooting, he says — and doing their best to differentiate between the wheat and the chaff. Agree with them or not, but they exude a certain authority.