The New Technologies, Part I: Broadcasting

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The New Technologies, Part I Broadcasting

• Journalism Traditions JMSC0025
• Assistant Professor Doreen Weisenhaus
• Oct 2007

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Some early views

• Our inventions are wont to be pretty toys, which
  distract our attention from serious things.They
  are but improved means to an unimproved end.
  Henry David Thoreau, 1854
• What did he mean?

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Some early views

• With the arrival of the telegraph, mere
  newspapers the circulators of intelligence
  merely must submit to destiny, and go out of
  existence James Gordon Bennett, founder, The
  New York Herald
• Bennett meant this in a positive way. What was
  his point?

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Early tech developments, pre-broadcast

• Photography
• 1829, developed by French painter Louis Jacques
  Daguerre
• Used during U.S. Civil War (1861-1865). First
  war to photograph extensively
• 1880s photographs began appearing in newspapers

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Early tech developments, pre-broadcast

• Telegraph
• 1840s, electric telegraph as much a political
  development as technological. 1844 Morse code
• Faster connections of people and places, markets,
  armies, governments
• 1858, 1866, first transatlantic cables
• Impact on journalists inverted pyramid
• Telephone
• 1870s
• Both technologies handled differently by
• governments. Europe control by the state.
• US private enterprise, intense competition
• monopolies

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Early tech developments, pre-broadcast

• Moving pictures (mass media)
• 1860s, mechanisms for producing two-dimensional
  images in motion
• Celluloid film developed for still photography
  could capture objects in motion
• 1880s, motion picture cameras, projectors
• 1920s, sound tracks for films (talkies)

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Early tech developments

• Newsreels
• 1908, created by Pathe Freres, France
• A newsreel is a documentary film regularly
  released in a public presentation place
  containing filmed news stories.
• Staple of North American, British, Commonwealth
  countries (especially Canada, Australia and New
  Zealand), and throughout Europe, from silent era
  until 1960s when television news broadcasting
  completely supplanted its role.

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Radio

• 1895, Guglielmo Marconi wireless telegraphy, a
  means of sending Morse code through air
• 1906, American Reginald Fessenden devised means
  for radio waves to carry signals for sound
• Amateur radio operators talk to each other.
• Used in WWI, but not to public

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Radio

• Broadcasting distribution of audio and/or video
  signals to a number of recipients that belong in
  a large group
• 1920, Westinghouse Electric launched first
  commercial radio station, KDKA in Pittsburgh,
  with report on Harding-Cox Presidential voting
• 1922 576 radio stations in US
• How to make ? Originally, to sell more radios!
  But ATT charged for those who broadcast from its
  transmitters a toll for audience access. Later,
  became model for advertising basis
• 1925 5.5 million radio sets in US
• 1926 ATT sells to RCA (Radio Corp of America)
  which forms NBC (National Broadcasting Co.).
  Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) founded a year
  later

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Radios impact

• Much of early radio journalism borrowed from
  print but medium forced changes in vocabulary and
  sentence structure. Why?
• 1930s First regular broadcast of daily news on
  radio. Modern newswriting style (short sentences,
  clear concise wording) honed on radio. Developed
  by Edward Murrow.
• 1937 coverage of Hindenburg crash in NJ
  http//www.otr.com/hindenburg.shtml (original
  recording)
• http//www.youtube.com/watch?v8V5KXgFLia4 (tv
  newsreel added)
• 1940-1945 WWII was to radio what the Civil War
  was to newspapers Bring news home!
• Big story 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor
• Most reported live, although later used taped
  recorder (invented by Germans)
• Used by President to communicate to whole country
• Presence of national networks contributed to
  growth of federal political power in 1930s, 1940s
• Contributed to national community

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Radio in the UK

• Different government controls in US. Unlike in
  Europe, no taxes or government control, favored
  policies encouraging new technologies, pluralism
  but eventually US saw need for central control.
• 1922, first radio broadcasts in UK. BBC licensed
  by Post Office, financed on radio receivers.
  Thus, monopoly structure, tax financing and
  subordination to Government.
• 1923 no advertising!
• 1927 Became a public corporation. Restricted in
  content no editorial positions on its own, for
  example.

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Television

• 1884, transforming moving pictures in electronic
  signals
• 1927, first system demonstrated in San Francisco
  by Philo Farnsworth
• 1939 first television baseball game
• 1941, CBS broadcasting two 15-minute newscasts in
  NY
• Earliest TV newscasts contracted with newsreel
  companies for visuals (originally TV was mix of
  radio and newsreels)
• At first, few TV news film crews cameras too
  bulky, time-consuming to develop film and send to
  NY, limitations (since filmed reports could not
  be aired for days, used for planned events,
  features)
• 1946 6,000 TV sets
• 1951 guess how many? (12 million!) And why?

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Television

• 1950s
• Golden Age
• CBS, NBC began own film reports with camera crews
  in largest cities
• Early big story Sinking of Andrea Doria, 1956
• 1960s
• Kennedy-Nixon debates
• Coverage of Kennedys assassination
• Lee Harvey Oswald shot on TV
• Vietnam War coverage and protesters
• Much entertainment. 1961 vast wasteland
• 1964 color

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Clips

• British WW2 newsreels (note news bias)
• http//www.youtube.com/watch?vm0-fVLCnsBs
• Nazi newsreel on Battle of Britain
• http//www.youtube.com/watch?vU9mFvq8PjNs
• http//www.youtube.com/watch?vHMiGc0wZ8a0
• Plymouth news caravan/ 1950
• http//www.youtube.com/watch?v-YyveYWpyYs
• 1954 Taiwan!!
• 1975 CBS fall of Saigon
• http//www.youtube.com/watch?vg9l5AnATlIU
• 1988 TVB Pearl
• http//www.youtube.com/watch?vJ8RPnlwJ6bM

• http//www.youtube.com/watch?vj4JOjcDFtBE
• Challenger CNN Live 2.23
• http//www.youtube.com/watch?v5hQL0NWS1Rc
• More Challenger, parents of teacher astronaut

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Public broadcasting

• US 1967 think tank report recommended 4th
  noncommercial network Public Broadcasting
  System. Now, more than 300 stations
• UK BBC (seen as a good counterbalance to papers)
• HK RTHK
• Compare funding Private fundraising (US) v. tax
  on sale of TV sets (BBC) v. direct government
  subsidy (RTHK)

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Cable television and other new technologies

• 1970s and 1980s emergence of cable as alternative
  television to major broadcasters
• CNN 1980s, first 24-hour network, cable
• 1980s home video recorders
• More and better cable
• 1990s the Internet more on this next week!