It's been a lot of fun having B-- home from the Air Force. In what's quickly becoming a Friday night tradition, we just chilled out, ate pizza and watched old movies. We passed on our usual choice of Mystery Science Theater 3000 and went with the double feature of Things To Come and The House That Dripped Blood.
I only knew of Things To Come by its reputation, and have to confess that I really wasn't all that eager to watch a slow paced film from 1936. But I was pleasantly surprised by this movie. It rocked! Very fluid camera moves, great special effects (especially the dogfight sequence) and a fast paced story. I tried imagining what it was like to watch this in the thirties -- what a spectacle -- it must have been The Day After Tomorrow of it's time. The story runs a little out of steam as mankind moves into its utopian existence, but the first 2/3 is impressive. (Although B-- and I couldn't figure out for the life of us why someone would want to start a revolt because of "progress." Anyone have any ideas?) It's a shame that the film has fallen into the public domain. This is a film that deserves a better presentation than the awful print used to make the DVD!
Our second feature arrived in the mail today: The House That Dripped Blood. I had a full house for this one -- my wife and kids, B-- and D--, a guy from church. I'm not sure what they all thought of it -- after all, Amicus Films are an acquired taste. But they seemed to enjoy it well enough. Me, on the other hand -- I love British horror flicks, no matter how corny or implausible they get.
Well, B-- isn't off to college for a few more weeks -- hopefully we can get a few more double features in before then!
Saturday, July 31, 2004
Saturday, July 24, 2004
The Stuff You Don't Blog About
Every writer goes through a dry spell, and I guess the last few weeks have been mine. Where I once couldn't wait to make a Blogger entry, if I think of blogging at all, it just seems like kind of a chore. And as chores go, mowing the lawn will score me a lot more points with the family and neighbors!
I looked at some other blogs today for inspiration and made a few discoveries:
1. Sex in a blog is an all or nothing proposition. Really. There is no middle ground. A blogger will go on and on about politics, religion, their favorite food, and the smell of their own farts, but no mention of sex will be found. I just can't imagine that there are that many gender neutral people blogging. The only blogs I came across that mentioned sex feature it as an exclusive topic, as if the writers do nothing else during the day but go from escapade to escapade. I found it odd to discover that blogs are written either by sexless manequins or people that go at it like jackrabbits 24/7.
2. A blog can get you fired. No kidding. Did you know that there are people naive enough to post from work computers or MicroSoft employees who post pictures of product development on the web? It's kind of asking for it, don't you think? On the other hand, it's less than satisfying to read postings about a generic workplace that gives no clue as to whether it's a gas station or a government think tank.
3. You can make different blogs for different topics. Blogger offers the option of doing multiple blogs. I guess in a perfect world I would have one exclusively for posting my musings on religion and a different one for my love of cheesy horror and sci-fi flicks. But that's who I am. I can spend an afternoon writing my Sunday sermon and then watch Day of the Triffids that evening. It may not be a picture that always makes sense, but I prefer to put the whole jumbled mess out there and let you, the reader, figure it out.
Just like all writing, I guess it all comes down to these questions: How much of myself am I willing to reveal? Am I writing for an audience, or for myself? Am I willing to pay the price for troubling the waters?
I looked at some other blogs today for inspiration and made a few discoveries:
1. Sex in a blog is an all or nothing proposition. Really. There is no middle ground. A blogger will go on and on about politics, religion, their favorite food, and the smell of their own farts, but no mention of sex will be found. I just can't imagine that there are that many gender neutral people blogging. The only blogs I came across that mentioned sex feature it as an exclusive topic, as if the writers do nothing else during the day but go from escapade to escapade. I found it odd to discover that blogs are written either by sexless manequins or people that go at it like jackrabbits 24/7.
2. A blog can get you fired. No kidding. Did you know that there are people naive enough to post from work computers or MicroSoft employees who post pictures of product development on the web? It's kind of asking for it, don't you think? On the other hand, it's less than satisfying to read postings about a generic workplace that gives no clue as to whether it's a gas station or a government think tank.
3. You can make different blogs for different topics. Blogger offers the option of doing multiple blogs. I guess in a perfect world I would have one exclusively for posting my musings on religion and a different one for my love of cheesy horror and sci-fi flicks. But that's who I am. I can spend an afternoon writing my Sunday sermon and then watch Day of the Triffids that evening. It may not be a picture that always makes sense, but I prefer to put the whole jumbled mess out there and let you, the reader, figure it out.
Just like all writing, I guess it all comes down to these questions: How much of myself am I willing to reveal? Am I writing for an audience, or for myself? Am I willing to pay the price for troubling the waters?
Thursday, July 22, 2004
Godspy Home Page
I just came across this cool website. It's called Godspy and is a journal of arts and culture from a distinctly Catholic perspective.
Wednesday, July 21, 2004
Calling all nerds!
Er, maybe that should read calling all fellow nerds.
The first new series of Doctor Who in fifteen years has begun filming this week. I watched this show religiously back in the 70s and 80s. It will be nice to finally see some new adventures on our TV screens soon. The special effects team also worked on the film Gladiator, so the series will finally have some nice-looking special effects for a change. I do have to confess, though, that it will take some getting used to a Doctor who's ditched the old-fashioned clothes for a t-shirt and leather jacket!
Can a revival of Mystery Science Theater 3000 be far behind?
The first new series of Doctor Who in fifteen years has begun filming this week. I watched this show religiously back in the 70s and 80s. It will be nice to finally see some new adventures on our TV screens soon. The special effects team also worked on the film Gladiator, so the series will finally have some nice-looking special effects for a change. I do have to confess, though, that it will take some getting used to a Doctor who's ditched the old-fashioned clothes for a t-shirt and leather jacket!
Can a revival of Mystery Science Theater 3000 be far behind?
Monday, July 19, 2004
So when was the last time you looked at your to-do list?
I use the book Celtic Daily Prayer from the Northumbria Community a few times a day for prayer and reflection. It's a great resource which I would recommend to anyone. It's not that often that a devotional makes me laugh out loud, but check out today's reading:
"The truth is, people will hold to almost anything in the name of Christianity: believe anything, do anything -- except its common and obvious tasks."
"The truth is, people will hold to almost anything in the name of Christianity: believe anything, do anything -- except its common and obvious tasks."
Saturday, July 17, 2004
LOH 1
Gloom and doom overshadows
And
BOOM
The light of hope
Crashes through
Wanting more
But not material
Wanting less
But not relational
REAL
Attachments make connections
Really connect
Using each moment
Living each second
Hearts pounding with
Anticipation
Understanding attained
Leaving me wanting more
Vision illuminated, made concrete
By the
BOOM
The light of hope
Crashing through
And
BOOM
The light of hope
Crashes through
Wanting more
But not material
Wanting less
But not relational
REAL
Attachments make connections
Really connect
Using each moment
Living each second
Hearts pounding with
Anticipation
Understanding attained
Leaving me wanting more
Vision illuminated, made concrete
By the
BOOM
The light of hope
Crashing through
TV News: Its Birth and Infancy
No one will ever forget the dreadful images of September 11, 2001.
Drawn to the nearest television by a phone call or a shout from a co-worker down the hall, Americans and viewers around the world stared in disbelief at the billowing smoke coming from the World Trade Center's North 110 Floor Tower. But nothing could prepare them for the shock that came moments later as United Airlines Flight 175 slammed into the complex's South Tower. Within an hour and a half, both towers were no more than a gigantic tomb of rubble for thousands of dead and missing.
As I struggled with the same mixture of grief and outrage shared almost universally by people everywhere, I was struck by the odd thought that because of television, so many people saw history being made -- live -- as it happened.
Sure, plenty of people have seen history-making events before on the evening news, but usually as a replay filmed or taped earlier in the day. Many events, such as the moon landing or the presidential elections, although broadcast live, have been scheduled in advance. Other newsworthy stories, such as military actions and natural disasters, are of such a long duration that getting pictures to the public isn’t that much more of an accomplishment than movie theater newsreels of the 1930s and 40s.
The attack on the World Trade Center was different. It was live spot news of an immense proportion. It delivered something that other media -- newspaper, radio and internet -- couldn’t deliver: the actual, history-making image as it happened. It’s no wonder that we instinctively reach for the remote in times of crisis.
Television news is ubiquitous. The other evening the restless insomniac that I am awoke at 3am and stumbled to my television set. Interspersed between reruns of “Matlock” and better-buns-and-abs infomercials were two network news broadcasts, one local broadcast, and a CNN re-feed on a bargain-basement UHF outlet. And that was just the over–the–air channels.
Taking a glance at my TV guide, I noted that a cable–connected news junkie could have scored a fix with CNN, CNN Headline News, Fox News Channel, and MSNBC. A commercial-induced withdrawal could be curbed by flipping over to "the niche news channels" like CNNFN, CNNSI, Court TV, Empire Sports Network, ESPN, ESPN 2 and the Weather Channel. Finally, the news junkie could come down from his information-overloaded high and be lulled to sleep by unedited highlights of the day's conferences and speeches on C-SPAN 1 & 2.
It’s almost hard to believe (or remember, as the case may be) that things weren’t always this way at all. Throughout the 20s, 30s and most of the 40s, television was little more than an experimental curiosity indulged in by educational and industrial organizations and a small group of wealthy viewers.
It’s not that people didn’t recognize the potential of the new device. Chairman of RCA David Sarnoff remarked in 1939, "The emotional appeal of pictures to the mass of people is everywhere apparent. (Kisseloff, 349-50)" But if the medium of television was ever going to find mass acceptance, it was going to have to broadcast something more intriguing than fuzzy pictures of Niagara Falls on an intermittent basis.
The development of a viable commercial television system was slow in coming to the United States. Not surprisingly, World War Two brought serious progress to a halt (Abramson, 31). But post-war television was hardly a boom–time, either: much time was spent fighting government anti–trust regulation, industry bickering over frequencies and competing standards, and, most importantly, in the minds executive boards everywhere: just how was this going to make any money (Boddy, 37-41)?
1948 is widely regarded as the year that broadcasters and the public really jumped head first into the ocean of commercial television. Television networks and stations met the public’s eager demand for shows with a variety of live programs: theater plays, musical showcases, stand–up comedy, soap operas and yes, news and public affairs programming.
The 1948 Republican National Convention in Philadelphia was broadcast to nine states via “stratovision” -- whereby “the signal was beamed up to a plane flying 25,000 feet above Pittsburgh… (Wilk, 97)” Following the critical acclaim of those broadcasts, the TV networks were eager to get involved with a regular schedule of news programs.
Douglas Edwards, known within the radio industry as more of an announcer than a reporter, was the face of CBS TV News. But what passed for network news in those days bares little resemblance to today’s spectacles. “…the Edwards show of those early years hardly even qualified as a television newscast. There were no television correspondents in the field and no network camera crews to film the stories. Except for wars, floods, and other catastrophes that, because of their duration retained a certain timeliness, there was little attempt to cover spot news. About 90 percent of a typical Edwards broadcast consisted of Edwards reading the news.” (Gates, 56)
NBC’s Meet The Press took advantage of early TV’s studio–bound limitations and became the longest-running news program on the air. A simple format, still followed today, consists of a few interviewers grilling a public figure on the important events of the day. Some notable guests of its first decade included Menachem Begin, Sen. Joseph McCarthy, Richard Nixon and Fidel Castro (Ball).
NBC’s entry into broadcast news is perhaps today remembered more for its sponsor than its content. The Camel News Caravan, hosted by the folksy John Cameron Swayze, made extensive use of newsreels (Bliss, 222-3). While the footage wasn’t always of the timeliest variety, it was at least a step in the right direction, playing towards the strengths of television broadcasting.
Other notable broadcasts of the first decade of television news included Edward R. Murrow’s See It Now, The Today Show (which accomplished the impossible feat of getting people to watch news in the morning -– even if it took a monkey to do it!), and CBS Reports. Of particular note is ABC’s unprecedented and uninterrupted coverage of the McCarthy hearings, viewed by over 80 million people (Streitmatter 168).
“Calling ABC’s televising of the hearings an act of enormous public service, Jack Gould wrote in the New York Times: ‘No viewer sitting in front of his screen can be unaware of the television’s tremendous role in the hearings – politically, educationally and socially. The television audience constitutes the real jury. Whatever the viewer’s personal political predilections, he is his own eye-witness, reporter and judge.” (Streitmatter 165)
In just a few short years the growth of the television industry forced its “big-brother,” radio, out of the general entertainment category and into a mostly local record–based format that it still, more or less, follows to this day (Emery 376). It kept audiences in their living rooms and out of the movie houses and live entertainment venues (Emery 393-5). It even began taking a large dent out of newspaper and magazine advertising revenue eventually resulting in the cancellation of The Saturday Evening Post and Collier’s (Emery 387).
With the increased audience and subsequent rise in revenues, funds were readily available for the development of new technologies that directly benefited news production: the Teleprompter -– which allowed anchormen to read their script without breaking eye–contact with the camera, color, magnetic sound, and coaxial connections from coast–to–coast that allowed networks to broadcast live news events to every affiliate at the same time (Kisseloff, 373).
“In 1947, only 1 percent of American homes had a television.” (Streitmatter 159) The 1950s saw television make great inroads with the American public. In 1952 “more than 34 percent of the homes -- fifteen million -- had television sets. By the end of the decade this figure was 86 percent.” (Emery 370) But the ubiquitous box in the living room was soon to be more than the trendy appliance to have.
Within fifteen years of its commercial inception, television news was no longer a novelty or hit–or–miss experiment in progress; it was a necessity for a nation in crisis. As Fred Friendly, then head of CBS News, recalled in the book Television:
“Those four days of massive television coverage of the Kennedy funeral held the nation together. A nation which had a forty-year old president shot from under them was in danger of disintegrating in an emotional tantrum...
"I think it was broadcasting's finest hour. And I think it might have saved this country... People at all three networks made the decision: no commercials, and more important, no entertainment programs. Television was for those four days the sinew, the stabilizing force, the gyroscope that held the country together.” (Winship, 218)
WORKS CITED
Abramson, Albert. "The Invention of Television." Television: An International History. Ed. Anthony Smith. New York: Oxford Press, 1992. 13-34.
Ball, Rick & NBC News. Meet the Press: Fifty Years of History in the Making. New York: McGraw–Hill, 1998.
Bliss, Edward Jr. Now The News: The Story of Broadcast Journalism. New York: Columbia University Press, 1991.
Boddy, William. "The Beginnings of American Television." Television: An International History. Ed. Anthony Smith. New York: Oxford Press, 1992. 118-147.
Emery, Michael C., Edwin Emery with Nancy L. Roberts. The Press and America: An Interpretive History of the Mass Media.
Needham Heights: Simon & Schuster, 1996.
Gates, Gary Paul. Air Time: The Inside Story of CBS News.
New York: Harper & Row, 1978.
Kisseloff, Jeff. The Box: An Oral History of Television, 1920-1961.
New York: Penguin Books, 1995.
Streitmatter, Rodger. Mightier than the Sword: How the News Media Have Shaped American History.
Boulder: Westview Press, 1997.
Wilk, Max. The Golden Age of Television.
New York: Delacorte Press, 1976.
Winship, Michael. Television. New York: Random House, 1988.
Drawn to the nearest television by a phone call or a shout from a co-worker down the hall, Americans and viewers around the world stared in disbelief at the billowing smoke coming from the World Trade Center's North 110 Floor Tower. But nothing could prepare them for the shock that came moments later as United Airlines Flight 175 slammed into the complex's South Tower. Within an hour and a half, both towers were no more than a gigantic tomb of rubble for thousands of dead and missing.
As I struggled with the same mixture of grief and outrage shared almost universally by people everywhere, I was struck by the odd thought that because of television, so many people saw history being made -- live -- as it happened.
Sure, plenty of people have seen history-making events before on the evening news, but usually as a replay filmed or taped earlier in the day. Many events, such as the moon landing or the presidential elections, although broadcast live, have been scheduled in advance. Other newsworthy stories, such as military actions and natural disasters, are of such a long duration that getting pictures to the public isn’t that much more of an accomplishment than movie theater newsreels of the 1930s and 40s.
The attack on the World Trade Center was different. It was live spot news of an immense proportion. It delivered something that other media -- newspaper, radio and internet -- couldn’t deliver: the actual, history-making image as it happened. It’s no wonder that we instinctively reach for the remote in times of crisis.
Television news is ubiquitous. The other evening the restless insomniac that I am awoke at 3am and stumbled to my television set. Interspersed between reruns of “Matlock” and better-buns-and-abs infomercials were two network news broadcasts, one local broadcast, and a CNN re-feed on a bargain-basement UHF outlet. And that was just the over–the–air channels.
Taking a glance at my TV guide, I noted that a cable–connected news junkie could have scored a fix with CNN, CNN Headline News, Fox News Channel, and MSNBC. A commercial-induced withdrawal could be curbed by flipping over to "the niche news channels" like CNNFN, CNNSI, Court TV, Empire Sports Network, ESPN, ESPN 2 and the Weather Channel. Finally, the news junkie could come down from his information-overloaded high and be lulled to sleep by unedited highlights of the day's conferences and speeches on C-SPAN 1 & 2.
It’s almost hard to believe (or remember, as the case may be) that things weren’t always this way at all. Throughout the 20s, 30s and most of the 40s, television was little more than an experimental curiosity indulged in by educational and industrial organizations and a small group of wealthy viewers.
It’s not that people didn’t recognize the potential of the new device. Chairman of RCA David Sarnoff remarked in 1939, "The emotional appeal of pictures to the mass of people is everywhere apparent. (Kisseloff, 349-50)" But if the medium of television was ever going to find mass acceptance, it was going to have to broadcast something more intriguing than fuzzy pictures of Niagara Falls on an intermittent basis.
The development of a viable commercial television system was slow in coming to the United States. Not surprisingly, World War Two brought serious progress to a halt (Abramson, 31). But post-war television was hardly a boom–time, either: much time was spent fighting government anti–trust regulation, industry bickering over frequencies and competing standards, and, most importantly, in the minds executive boards everywhere: just how was this going to make any money (Boddy, 37-41)?
1948 is widely regarded as the year that broadcasters and the public really jumped head first into the ocean of commercial television. Television networks and stations met the public’s eager demand for shows with a variety of live programs: theater plays, musical showcases, stand–up comedy, soap operas and yes, news and public affairs programming.
The 1948 Republican National Convention in Philadelphia was broadcast to nine states via “stratovision” -- whereby “the signal was beamed up to a plane flying 25,000 feet above Pittsburgh… (Wilk, 97)” Following the critical acclaim of those broadcasts, the TV networks were eager to get involved with a regular schedule of news programs.
Douglas Edwards, known within the radio industry as more of an announcer than a reporter, was the face of CBS TV News. But what passed for network news in those days bares little resemblance to today’s spectacles. “…the Edwards show of those early years hardly even qualified as a television newscast. There were no television correspondents in the field and no network camera crews to film the stories. Except for wars, floods, and other catastrophes that, because of their duration retained a certain timeliness, there was little attempt to cover spot news. About 90 percent of a typical Edwards broadcast consisted of Edwards reading the news.” (Gates, 56)
NBC’s Meet The Press took advantage of early TV’s studio–bound limitations and became the longest-running news program on the air. A simple format, still followed today, consists of a few interviewers grilling a public figure on the important events of the day. Some notable guests of its first decade included Menachem Begin, Sen. Joseph McCarthy, Richard Nixon and Fidel Castro (Ball).
NBC’s entry into broadcast news is perhaps today remembered more for its sponsor than its content. The Camel News Caravan, hosted by the folksy John Cameron Swayze, made extensive use of newsreels (Bliss, 222-3). While the footage wasn’t always of the timeliest variety, it was at least a step in the right direction, playing towards the strengths of television broadcasting.
Other notable broadcasts of the first decade of television news included Edward R. Murrow’s See It Now, The Today Show (which accomplished the impossible feat of getting people to watch news in the morning -– even if it took a monkey to do it!), and CBS Reports. Of particular note is ABC’s unprecedented and uninterrupted coverage of the McCarthy hearings, viewed by over 80 million people (Streitmatter 168).
“Calling ABC’s televising of the hearings an act of enormous public service, Jack Gould wrote in the New York Times: ‘No viewer sitting in front of his screen can be unaware of the television’s tremendous role in the hearings – politically, educationally and socially. The television audience constitutes the real jury. Whatever the viewer’s personal political predilections, he is his own eye-witness, reporter and judge.” (Streitmatter 165)
In just a few short years the growth of the television industry forced its “big-brother,” radio, out of the general entertainment category and into a mostly local record–based format that it still, more or less, follows to this day (Emery 376). It kept audiences in their living rooms and out of the movie houses and live entertainment venues (Emery 393-5). It even began taking a large dent out of newspaper and magazine advertising revenue eventually resulting in the cancellation of The Saturday Evening Post and Collier’s (Emery 387).
With the increased audience and subsequent rise in revenues, funds were readily available for the development of new technologies that directly benefited news production: the Teleprompter -– which allowed anchormen to read their script without breaking eye–contact with the camera, color, magnetic sound, and coaxial connections from coast–to–coast that allowed networks to broadcast live news events to every affiliate at the same time (Kisseloff, 373).
“In 1947, only 1 percent of American homes had a television.” (Streitmatter 159) The 1950s saw television make great inroads with the American public. In 1952 “more than 34 percent of the homes -- fifteen million -- had television sets. By the end of the decade this figure was 86 percent.” (Emery 370) But the ubiquitous box in the living room was soon to be more than the trendy appliance to have.
Within fifteen years of its commercial inception, television news was no longer a novelty or hit–or–miss experiment in progress; it was a necessity for a nation in crisis. As Fred Friendly, then head of CBS News, recalled in the book Television:
“Those four days of massive television coverage of the Kennedy funeral held the nation together. A nation which had a forty-year old president shot from under them was in danger of disintegrating in an emotional tantrum...
"I think it was broadcasting's finest hour. And I think it might have saved this country... People at all three networks made the decision: no commercials, and more important, no entertainment programs. Television was for those four days the sinew, the stabilizing force, the gyroscope that held the country together.” (Winship, 218)
WORKS CITED
Abramson, Albert. "The Invention of Television." Television: An International History. Ed. Anthony Smith. New York: Oxford Press, 1992. 13-34.
Ball, Rick & NBC News. Meet the Press: Fifty Years of History in the Making. New York: McGraw–Hill, 1998.
Bliss, Edward Jr. Now The News: The Story of Broadcast Journalism. New York: Columbia University Press, 1991.
Boddy, William. "The Beginnings of American Television." Television: An International History. Ed. Anthony Smith. New York: Oxford Press, 1992. 118-147.
Emery, Michael C., Edwin Emery with Nancy L. Roberts. The Press and America: An Interpretive History of the Mass Media.
Needham Heights: Simon & Schuster, 1996.
Gates, Gary Paul. Air Time: The Inside Story of CBS News.
New York: Harper & Row, 1978.
Kisseloff, Jeff. The Box: An Oral History of Television, 1920-1961.
New York: Penguin Books, 1995.
Streitmatter, Rodger. Mightier than the Sword: How the News Media Have Shaped American History.
Boulder: Westview Press, 1997.
Wilk, Max. The Golden Age of Television.
New York: Delacorte Press, 1976.
Winship, Michael. Television. New York: Random House, 1988.
Thursday, July 15, 2004
The Golden Spike
May 10, 1869 -- Promontory Summit, Utah. The chief engineer of the Union Pacific Railroad drives the final spike connecting his line to the Central Pacific Railroad. While not yet qualifying the westward pioneers for Amtrak Guest Rewards, it does reduce their treacherous six–month journey to a six–day train ride. The United States becomes a little bit “smaller” as the coasts are connected by rail.
Eighty years later, another event connecting east and west occurred, but it’s rarely (if ever) mentioned in the history books: the first television broadcast seen simultaneously on both coasts of the United States, as chronicled in the book The Press and America: An Interpretive History of the Mass Media (370).
Coast-to-coast broadcasting was made possible with the development of coaxial cable. The first lines had been laid by 1946 between New York, Philadelphia, and Washington, and by 1947 to Boston. By 1948 the Midwest was included so that network shows were received simultaneously in the middle and eastern parts of the nation. Finally, in 1951, AT&T completed a microwave relay system to the West Coast, in time for President Truman to address the San Francisco peace conference that ended the Pacific war in September. That speech was carried by 94 stations. Regular network broadcasting followed, and one of the first shows to be aired was Edward R. Murrow’s See It Now.
It’s a shame that this “golden spike” is so neglected in our cultural literacy. In my opinion, the development of broadcasting technology has at the very least had as much of an effect on the social change and development of this country as the transcontinental railroad.
I think that this event is quite often overlooked because the general public doesn’t understand the intricacies of television technology, and that people have forgotten to what extent the presentation of the medium has improved over the years.
In television news, electronic technology and the gathering and the presentation of the news are forever intertwined. In my previous paper, TV News: Its Birth and Infancy, I wrote about television’s first regular news broadcast: CBS TV News, a rather pedestrian affair that seemed to consist entirely of Douglas Edwards sitting at a desk smoking a cigarette. The visual design would occasionally kick into overdrive with the addition of -- now, sit down for this -- a map or a globe.
From a twenty–first century perspective, CBS TV News, Camel News Caravan, and the other early attempts at the news aren’t very riveting television. Archival rebroadcasts beg the modern viewer to ask, “Didn’t they know how to ‘do’ television back then?”
There are some good arguments to be made:
Why have Doug Edwards read excerpts from the State of the Union instead of just playing footage of President Truman outlining his “fair deal?”
How about a live report from China about the end of its bloody civil war?
What about a split–screen live debate between egghead sociologists in different cities about the impact apartheid would have on South Africa?
The truth of the matter is that the technology necessary to produce any of the aforementioned scenarios simply didn’t exist in the forties and early fifties. Just as Johann Gutenberg wasn’t cranking out four–color offset printed Bibles on glossy paper in 1455, the advent of television broadcasting didn’t bring with it color, magnetic sound, microwave relays, satellite uplinks and downlinks, digital switchers, and videotape.
That’s to say nothing of the human resources necessary to make a visually–impacting broadcast –- in television’s earliest days the industry didn’t even have its own film cameramen, relying instead on newsreel companies for actualities, and even then only events of a long duration.
Pioneer TV journalists were hampered in their presentation of the news by the scant technological resources of their time.
Just read what it took to spruce up a newscast with some film footage:
It was a terrible thing to get film on the air. Let’s say an airplane crashed in Dallas, Texas... We had to figure out airline schedules. Then, we had motorcycle couriers at the airports to get the film from the stewardess or the pilot.
You got the lab to turn down all other business and stand by with the machines all threaded up and ready to go. They’d slap the film on there and edit it quickly...
We would then write the script, put it in the can, and start a mad dash down Park Avenue in a Red Jeepster. We’d get to the RCA Building, and they’d be holding an elevator. ‘Here it comes through!’ It was like gangbusters every night of the week. Sometimes we wouldn’t make it. (Kisseloff 365)
With ulcer-creating scenarios like this being played out by television producers on a daily basis, no wonder the first great advancement of television news was the ability to transmit stories across a network of coaxial cable! But all joking aside, for the television industry to fulfill the public’s expectation of being the “window on the world,” it would had to create a more reliable and instantaneous way of delivering news actualities from around the country.
As previously mentioned, coaxial cable and microwave relays expanded the network’s capabilities. Journalistic icon Edward R. Murrow utilized the technology to startling effect on his first edition of See It Now by showing live pictures of New York and San Francisco simultaneously. (Emery 372) While not part of a news story per se, Murrow demonstrated the possibility of the new electronic tools.
The technology also helped bring down a threat to the American way of life. At the height of Joe McCarthy’s witch hunt, many newspapers and reporters were so fearful of being labeled communist sympathizers that they were basically running his press releases verbatim. (Streitmatter 157-8) What might have happened to America if television hadn’t stepped in?
ABC [provided] gavel–to–gavel coverage of the most explosive congressional hearings in American history. For more than a month, ABC held eighty million viewers riveted to their televisions as the unforgiving camera revealed McCarthy to be a rude and sadistic bully. By the time the hearings ended, McCarthyism had been relegated to the history books. (Streitmatter, 154)
A modern-day monster brought down by a fourth-rate TV network. ABC wouldn’t have been able to get away with a critical analysis of McCarthy -- it just didn’t have the clout back then. But by utilizing the technology to run a live and unfiltered feed into people’s homes, the tide of public opinion was turned.
Within a decade, the coaxial network was superseded by a system of satellites, adding a global as well as national perspective into the news. But the impact and result remained the same. Television now communicated to viewers through images, sometimes brutal images of current events. It made people aware of the brutal reality of black oppression (Streitmatter 171) and the senseless conflict in Vietnam (Streitmatter 187) in a way that an announcer behind a desk reading a script never could.
Just like the transcontinental railroad brought the country closer together, the United States -- and the world -- became a little bit “smaller” as communities were connected by television.
WORKS CITED
Bleazard, G.B. Introducing Satellite Communications.
Manchester: NCC Publications, 1985.
Emery, Michael C., Edwin Emery with Nancy L. Roberts. The Press and America: An Interpretive History of the Mass Media.
Needham Heights: Simon & Schuster, 1996.
Kisseloff, Jeff. The Box: An Oral History of Television, 1920-1961.
New York: Penguin Books, 1995.
Streitmatter, Rodger. Mightier than the Sword: How the News Media Have Shaped American History.
Boulder: Westview Press, 1997.
Eighty years later, another event connecting east and west occurred, but it’s rarely (if ever) mentioned in the history books: the first television broadcast seen simultaneously on both coasts of the United States, as chronicled in the book The Press and America: An Interpretive History of the Mass Media (370).
Coast-to-coast broadcasting was made possible with the development of coaxial cable. The first lines had been laid by 1946 between New York, Philadelphia, and Washington, and by 1947 to Boston. By 1948 the Midwest was included so that network shows were received simultaneously in the middle and eastern parts of the nation. Finally, in 1951, AT&T completed a microwave relay system to the West Coast, in time for President Truman to address the San Francisco peace conference that ended the Pacific war in September. That speech was carried by 94 stations. Regular network broadcasting followed, and one of the first shows to be aired was Edward R. Murrow’s See It Now.
It’s a shame that this “golden spike” is so neglected in our cultural literacy. In my opinion, the development of broadcasting technology has at the very least had as much of an effect on the social change and development of this country as the transcontinental railroad.
I think that this event is quite often overlooked because the general public doesn’t understand the intricacies of television technology, and that people have forgotten to what extent the presentation of the medium has improved over the years.
In television news, electronic technology and the gathering and the presentation of the news are forever intertwined. In my previous paper, TV News: Its Birth and Infancy, I wrote about television’s first regular news broadcast: CBS TV News, a rather pedestrian affair that seemed to consist entirely of Douglas Edwards sitting at a desk smoking a cigarette. The visual design would occasionally kick into overdrive with the addition of -- now, sit down for this -- a map or a globe.
From a twenty–first century perspective, CBS TV News, Camel News Caravan, and the other early attempts at the news aren’t very riveting television. Archival rebroadcasts beg the modern viewer to ask, “Didn’t they know how to ‘do’ television back then?”
There are some good arguments to be made:
Why have Doug Edwards read excerpts from the State of the Union instead of just playing footage of President Truman outlining his “fair deal?”
How about a live report from China about the end of its bloody civil war?
What about a split–screen live debate between egghead sociologists in different cities about the impact apartheid would have on South Africa?
The truth of the matter is that the technology necessary to produce any of the aforementioned scenarios simply didn’t exist in the forties and early fifties. Just as Johann Gutenberg wasn’t cranking out four–color offset printed Bibles on glossy paper in 1455, the advent of television broadcasting didn’t bring with it color, magnetic sound, microwave relays, satellite uplinks and downlinks, digital switchers, and videotape.
That’s to say nothing of the human resources necessary to make a visually–impacting broadcast –- in television’s earliest days the industry didn’t even have its own film cameramen, relying instead on newsreel companies for actualities, and even then only events of a long duration.
Pioneer TV journalists were hampered in their presentation of the news by the scant technological resources of their time.
Just read what it took to spruce up a newscast with some film footage:
It was a terrible thing to get film on the air. Let’s say an airplane crashed in Dallas, Texas... We had to figure out airline schedules. Then, we had motorcycle couriers at the airports to get the film from the stewardess or the pilot.
You got the lab to turn down all other business and stand by with the machines all threaded up and ready to go. They’d slap the film on there and edit it quickly...
We would then write the script, put it in the can, and start a mad dash down Park Avenue in a Red Jeepster. We’d get to the RCA Building, and they’d be holding an elevator. ‘Here it comes through!’ It was like gangbusters every night of the week. Sometimes we wouldn’t make it. (Kisseloff 365)
With ulcer-creating scenarios like this being played out by television producers on a daily basis, no wonder the first great advancement of television news was the ability to transmit stories across a network of coaxial cable! But all joking aside, for the television industry to fulfill the public’s expectation of being the “window on the world,” it would had to create a more reliable and instantaneous way of delivering news actualities from around the country.
As previously mentioned, coaxial cable and microwave relays expanded the network’s capabilities. Journalistic icon Edward R. Murrow utilized the technology to startling effect on his first edition of See It Now by showing live pictures of New York and San Francisco simultaneously. (Emery 372) While not part of a news story per se, Murrow demonstrated the possibility of the new electronic tools.
The technology also helped bring down a threat to the American way of life. At the height of Joe McCarthy’s witch hunt, many newspapers and reporters were so fearful of being labeled communist sympathizers that they were basically running his press releases verbatim. (Streitmatter 157-8) What might have happened to America if television hadn’t stepped in?
ABC [provided] gavel–to–gavel coverage of the most explosive congressional hearings in American history. For more than a month, ABC held eighty million viewers riveted to their televisions as the unforgiving camera revealed McCarthy to be a rude and sadistic bully. By the time the hearings ended, McCarthyism had been relegated to the history books. (Streitmatter, 154)
A modern-day monster brought down by a fourth-rate TV network. ABC wouldn’t have been able to get away with a critical analysis of McCarthy -- it just didn’t have the clout back then. But by utilizing the technology to run a live and unfiltered feed into people’s homes, the tide of public opinion was turned.
Within a decade, the coaxial network was superseded by a system of satellites, adding a global as well as national perspective into the news. But the impact and result remained the same. Television now communicated to viewers through images, sometimes brutal images of current events. It made people aware of the brutal reality of black oppression (Streitmatter 171) and the senseless conflict in Vietnam (Streitmatter 187) in a way that an announcer behind a desk reading a script never could.
Just like the transcontinental railroad brought the country closer together, the United States -- and the world -- became a little bit “smaller” as communities were connected by television.
WORKS CITED
Bleazard, G.B. Introducing Satellite Communications.
Manchester: NCC Publications, 1985.
Emery, Michael C., Edwin Emery with Nancy L. Roberts. The Press and America: An Interpretive History of the Mass Media.
Needham Heights: Simon & Schuster, 1996.
Kisseloff, Jeff. The Box: An Oral History of Television, 1920-1961.
New York: Penguin Books, 1995.
Streitmatter, Rodger. Mightier than the Sword: How the News Media Have Shaped American History.
Boulder: Westview Press, 1997.
Wednesday, July 14, 2004
My Crazy Life
Love invades and topsy-turvy
Everything goes wervy-mervy.
Loss interrupts delivering pain
All the work goes down the drain.
Laughter intrudes, sings too loud
Shouting above the din of the crowd.
Anguish alters reality’s rhyme
Setting everything off off time.
Anxiousness distracts good intentions
With flustered answers to too many questions.
Ability can increase or decrease might,
As commitments carry into the night.
Hopes haunted, fears challenged,
Everyone watching this seems to be astounded.
Wandering worry, wished wane
My crazy life that is happy, sad and SANE.
Everything goes wervy-mervy.
Loss interrupts delivering pain
All the work goes down the drain.
Laughter intrudes, sings too loud
Shouting above the din of the crowd.
Anguish alters reality’s rhyme
Setting everything off off time.
Anxiousness distracts good intentions
With flustered answers to too many questions.
Ability can increase or decrease might,
As commitments carry into the night.
Hopes haunted, fears challenged,
Everyone watching this seems to be astounded.
Wandering worry, wished wane
My crazy life that is happy, sad and SANE.
Hello Muddah, Hello Faddah
I've spent the better part of the last two weeks convincing my seven-year old how beneficial a week at summer camp would be. Let's just say that he wasn't easily convinced -- after all, it would be his first time away from home. But through a strange coincidence, my denomination held a family day for clergy at this very camp today. My son had an immediate rapport with the new camp director and was also impressed with the pool, the mini-golf park, and the gymnasium. He also realized that he already knows about 8 members of the staff, who come from our home church. So suddenly, he's very excited about beginning sleepaway camp tomorrow. Of course, I'm now the one who's having second thoughts about sending my baby boy away for six whole days!!! SOB!!!
Sunday, July 11, 2004
Sabbath's End
This last week has been good.
T-- and I made it a special point this week to live in the present moment. I think we actually managed to spend the last seven days without having a discussion about work! Instead we tried something new -- we enjoyed ourselves with whatever we were doing at the moment.
Take yesterday for example. As we were driving from Jamestown to the Buffalo/Niagara region, it kind of occurred to us that we had never actually decided what we were going to do when we got there! So we drove around until we got to the Castellani Art Museum on the campus of Niagara University. It was an interesting collection primarily made up of pieces after 1980. There was a fantastic large installation called Waterfall by Patrick Robideau, which was composed of dozens of old trunks stacked atop one another. However, I was most impressed by the small pieces of mixed media by Gerald Meade. And then for something completely different, we made our way to Old Fort Niagara for a walking tour.
The Teacher in Eccleiastes wrote, "Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might." So often I've only thought of that quote in relation to my employment, but I now see that it's just as valid for rest and recreation. Maybe even more vaild. So often I feel guilty during my "downtime" and seek to fill it with some sort of productive activity. But this week has me seeing time off in a different light -- as a Sabbath which is just as important to my family's well-being as putting groceries on the table.
Did I already say it's been good? The Genesee Country Village & Museum... Swimming (and grilling) at my mom's house, playing action figures with my son, going out to eat, watching movies, and even just taking a nap. Whatever we did this week, we did wholeheartedly, and it brought us closer together and more ready for the challenges in the months ahead. But I'm not going to think about that now -- I have a whole day of vacation left to meet some friends at their new church, hit the pool, watch a monster movie, and maybe even catch a nap!
T-- and I made it a special point this week to live in the present moment. I think we actually managed to spend the last seven days without having a discussion about work! Instead we tried something new -- we enjoyed ourselves with whatever we were doing at the moment.
Take yesterday for example. As we were driving from Jamestown to the Buffalo/Niagara region, it kind of occurred to us that we had never actually decided what we were going to do when we got there! So we drove around until we got to the Castellani Art Museum on the campus of Niagara University. It was an interesting collection primarily made up of pieces after 1980. There was a fantastic large installation called Waterfall by Patrick Robideau, which was composed of dozens of old trunks stacked atop one another. However, I was most impressed by the small pieces of mixed media by Gerald Meade. And then for something completely different, we made our way to Old Fort Niagara for a walking tour.
The Teacher in Eccleiastes wrote, "Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might." So often I've only thought of that quote in relation to my employment, but I now see that it's just as valid for rest and recreation. Maybe even more vaild. So often I feel guilty during my "downtime" and seek to fill it with some sort of productive activity. But this week has me seeing time off in a different light -- as a Sabbath which is just as important to my family's well-being as putting groceries on the table.
Did I already say it's been good? The Genesee Country Village & Museum... Swimming (and grilling) at my mom's house, playing action figures with my son, going out to eat, watching movies, and even just taking a nap. Whatever we did this week, we did wholeheartedly, and it brought us closer together and more ready for the challenges in the months ahead. But I'm not going to think about that now -- I have a whole day of vacation left to meet some friends at their new church, hit the pool, watch a monster movie, and maybe even catch a nap!
Saturday, July 10, 2004
Monsters rule O.K.!!!
My love of bad movies is legendary. As a kid, I once hitchhiked home from camp so I could catch a 2 am showing of The Thing With Two Heads. Years later, it was the first movie I purchased on DVD.
Imagine my joy and excitement yesterday as I browsed the aisles at my local Best Buy and saw a copy of The Monster Club on DVD for $9.99. Released directly to TV in America, The Monster Club was a stepchild of the Amicus horror anthologies of the 60s and 70s. The movie is a who's who of horror: Roy Ward Baker, Vincent Price, John Carradine, Simon Ward, Geoffrey Bayldon, Donald Pleasence, Britt Ekland, Patrick Magee, and Roy Ashton. Add a great soundtrack by a bunch of bands that never broke in America, and you've got an evening of prime entertainment!
This movie really takes me back to the early 1980s. We were the first family on our block to have one of those newfangled VCRs (a Montgomery Ward!) and one of the first things I ever recorded was The Monster Club off of WOR-TV. I've probably watched this flick a couple dozen times over the course of my life and it's as nostalgic for me as looking at my high school yearbook. This isn't a great movie. It's a movie that's so bad it's great! Remember -- MONSTERS RULE O.K.!!!
Imagine my joy and excitement yesterday as I browsed the aisles at my local Best Buy and saw a copy of The Monster Club on DVD for $9.99. Released directly to TV in America, The Monster Club was a stepchild of the Amicus horror anthologies of the 60s and 70s. The movie is a who's who of horror: Roy Ward Baker, Vincent Price, John Carradine, Simon Ward, Geoffrey Bayldon, Donald Pleasence, Britt Ekland, Patrick Magee, and Roy Ashton. Add a great soundtrack by a bunch of bands that never broke in America, and you've got an evening of prime entertainment!
This movie really takes me back to the early 1980s. We were the first family on our block to have one of those newfangled VCRs (a Montgomery Ward!) and one of the first things I ever recorded was The Monster Club off of WOR-TV. I've probably watched this flick a couple dozen times over the course of my life and it's as nostalgic for me as looking at my high school yearbook. This isn't a great movie. It's a movie that's so bad it's great! Remember -- MONSTERS RULE O.K.!!!
Thursday, July 08, 2004
Quote of the Week: Compassion
"Compassion is the sometimes fatal capacity for feeling what it's like to live inside somebody else's skin. It is the knowledge that there can never really be any peace and joy for me until there is peace and joy finally for you too." - Frederick Buechner in his book Wishful Thinking
Wednesday, July 07, 2004
Genesee Country Village and Museum
I may not own a TARDIS, but I still managed to spend the second day of my vacation traveling through time. The extended family and I spent an enjoyable day at the Genesse Country Village and Museum in Mumford, New York. It's a massive collection of historical homes and businesses that have been moved to a piece of property just shy of Rochester, NY. All of the buildings have been carefully refurbished and furnished, and many of them have tour guides who will give you the history of the site. Pretty cool.
There is a real sense of peace that rests there. Exploring an austere Quaker meeting house and imagining the people who worshipped there, petting the animals, smelling the rosewater and walking the the garden at the Shaker Trustees' Building... I was amazed at the ingenuity of early settlers in the day-to-day business of daily living. It's a way of life forever closed to me. After all, I wouldn't survive a month on the frontier because I don't know anything about planting a garden, working with my hands, or, well, virtually anything I would need to do to live!
Yet there is such a purity, a "rightness" about that way of life that I hunger for. I can't help but wonder that for all our technological advances -- are we really better off?
There is a real sense of peace that rests there. Exploring an austere Quaker meeting house and imagining the people who worshipped there, petting the animals, smelling the rosewater and walking the the garden at the Shaker Trustees' Building... I was amazed at the ingenuity of early settlers in the day-to-day business of daily living. It's a way of life forever closed to me. After all, I wouldn't survive a month on the frontier because I don't know anything about planting a garden, working with my hands, or, well, virtually anything I would need to do to live!
Yet there is such a purity, a "rightness" about that way of life that I hunger for. I can't help but wonder that for all our technological advances -- are we really better off?
Monday, July 05, 2004
Sabbath
I began my vacation today. It is a welcome relief after a particular busy month, where T-- and I found ourselves working every weekend.
Today, I was as unproductive as a rock. Since yesterday was a fourteen-hour day spent doing our Sunday meeting and picking kids up from summer camp, we wisely didn't plan any big activities for day one. So I spent the day in rest and relaxation -- mostly naps punctuated by brief periods of eating. Just when I thought that the day couldn't get any better, I discovered that Turner Classic Movies was showing a marathon of sci-fi cult favorites like Village of the Damned, Twenty Million Miles to Earth, and Forbidden Planet. (The girls contented themselves upstairs with daytime TV.)
I'm enjoying myself. It feels so good to slow down after pushing myself for so long -- and I still have six days left!
Today, I was as unproductive as a rock. Since yesterday was a fourteen-hour day spent doing our Sunday meeting and picking kids up from summer camp, we wisely didn't plan any big activities for day one. So I spent the day in rest and relaxation -- mostly naps punctuated by brief periods of eating. Just when I thought that the day couldn't get any better, I discovered that Turner Classic Movies was showing a marathon of sci-fi cult favorites like Village of the Damned, Twenty Million Miles to Earth, and Forbidden Planet. (The girls contented themselves upstairs with daytime TV.)
I'm enjoying myself. It feels so good to slow down after pushing myself for so long -- and I still have six days left!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)