SLIDE 1 Battle of the Brains: Election-Night Forecasting at the Dawn of the Computer Age
Using Archival Materials to Explore the Historic 1952 Debut of Computers as Tools for News Reporting Ira Chinoy
Philip Merrill College of Journalism University of Maryland
SLIDE 2
SLIDE 3
SLIDE 4
SLIDE 6
SLIDE 7
SLIDE 8
SLIDE 9
Unisys History Newsletter:
“… Jack Gould, the television writer for The New York Times, was not impressed with either the UNIVAC or the much smaller Monrobot computer used by the NBC network: „Both gadgets were more of a nuisance than a help...‟ "
SLIDE 10
SLIDE 11
SLIDE 12
SLIDE 13
SLIDE 14
SLIDE 16
SLIDE 17 The New York Times, 1860
SLIDE 18 The New York Times, Nov. 12, 1864
SLIDE 19
1911
SLIDE 20
SLIDE 21 Ad for the N.Y. Herald In the N.Y. Times, 1890
SLIDE 22 The New York Herald, 1890
SLIDE 23 N.Y. Herald election-night display, Madison Square (Harper’s Weekly, May 20, 1888)
SLIDE 24 Times Square on Election Night, circa 1904
SLIDE 25 The New York Times 1904
SLIDE 26 N.Y. Tribune, 1896
SLIDE 27
SLIDE 28
SLIDE 29 Reproduced in: “Whistles, Crowds and Free Silver – The Election of 1896” Thomas C. Buckley, Ramsey County History, Fall 1992
SLIDE 30
SLIDE 31
N.Y. Times, 1908
SLIDE 32
- St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Nov. 3, 1920
SLIDE 33 The New York American 1916
SLIDE 34 New York American,
SLIDE 35
SLIDE 36 Detroit News, 1920
SLIDE 37 1920: The launch of KDKA in Pittsburgh …
SLIDE 38
SLIDE 39 The New York Times, 1928
SLIDE 40 The New York Times, Nov. 7, 1928
SLIDE 41 The New York Times, Nov. 8, 1944
SLIDE 42
SLIDE 43
N.Y. Herald, 1860 N.Y. Herald, 1864
SLIDE 44
N.Y. Tribune, 1896
SLIDE 45
NBC TV election-night planning memo, 1948
SLIDE 46
The stakes in 1952 Intersecting and competing agendas in the quest for attention, prestige and reputation
SLIDE 47
1948
SLIDE 48 Historycentral.com
SLIDE 49 In 1952, the pioneers of journalism
- n television were on a quest to
show that their medium was an appropriate one for news. They were also competing with each other for viewers – and sponsors.
SLIDE 50
And they were competing in a culture-wide scramble for attention on election night – involving all sorts of venues promising the latest election returns: Radio … Newspaper displays …. Movie theaters … Dances and band performances … Stores and restaurants … And more, even evangelists…
SLIDE 51
SLIDE 52
SLIDE 53
The nascent computer industry had interests, as well, in calling attention to itself … to show that its new “electronic brains” were serious and reliable devices for business, government, and science. But there were many players, large and small, old and new, making a range of devices and competing to become important and dominant.
SLIDE 54 There were the big players with mammoth devices and a longstanding battle for supremacy in the market for technology serving business. These included IBM, the leader in punched-card equipment but not due to come out with its first commercial computer until just after the election. And there was Remington Rand, maker of the UNIVAC, which was already serving the U.S. Census. There were other competitors with a wide range
- f ideas about what computers ought to be and who
- ught to be able to operate them. One of these was
the Monroe Calculating Machine Company, venturing into the market for “electronic brains” with the desk- sized Monrobot – still in the prototype stage.
SLIDE 55
Computers had not been used on election night before. They were new. But the computer industry, though young, was already suffused by a culture of demonstration ….
SLIDE 56 1951: Murrow “interviews” the MIT Whirlwind on “See It Now.” 1946: ENIAC‟s coming out party, complete with iconic blinking lights, got lots of attention…
Whirlwind.wmv
SLIDE 57 UNIVAC co-inventor John Mauchly‟s quest to reach
- rdinary people with something meaningful to them:
October 1952:
Johns Hopkins Science Review, “Can Machines Think.”
Hopkins.wmv
SLIDE 58 Networks teamed up with computer makers and ran newspaper ads with bold claims about the computers and their upcoming election-night roles.
SLIDE 59
Computer makers had much to gain from attention on election night … But there was also much too lose should something go wrong. The stakes, and the pressure, were high.
SLIDE 60 “For the electronic computers,” Business Week observed, “it‟s a test of whether or not they have any real place in the Election Night hurlyburly at radio-TV studios.”
“Election Night: Test for Polls and Robot Brains” Business Week, Nov. 1, 1952.
“Most of us who will be grappling with the election problem
- ver at NBC, with the assistance of Monrobot, are viewing
the activities of the mechanical monster with considerable interest,” wrote Bill Henry in his Los Angeles Times column on election day. He was to anchor the NBC broadcast, where veteran broadcaster Morgan Beatty was to be “nursemaid or interpreter” for the Monrobot. Most who know Beatty, wrote Henry, “would bet on him against any calculating machine extant.”
“By The Way With Bill Henry,” Los Angeles Times, Nov. 4, 1952
SLIDE 61 Ahead of the 1952 vote: Suspense, or at least the hedging of bets
SLIDE 62 Across the country, banner headlines on election day, 1952:
SLIDE 63 Historycentral.com
SLIDE 64 1952 Election Night UNIVAC on CBS Monrobot on NBC TV.wmv Weather.wmv
SLIDE 65 Also ran: IBM, ABC and The New York World- Telegram and Sun
SLIDE 66 Responses? They varied widely within the ranks of the networks, the computer companies, reporters inside and
critics and the public
SLIDE 67
Just what happened?
The danger of received versions … … and a cautionary tale about documents
SLIDE 68
SLIDE 69 HAGLEY
SMITHSONIAN
SLIDE 70 HAGLEY
SMITHSONIAN
HAGLEY
SMITHSONIAN
SLIDE 71
Does it matter?
SLIDE 72 It does if it conveys a sense of the following that may be at odds with the historical record: The circumstances under which new technologies are deployed …. The degree to which they meet with a wide range
The degree to which the new automatically replaces the old …
- Vs. the degree which they may be deployed side
by side
SLIDE 73
The entry of computing into journalism was not automatic, as evidenced, if nothing else, by the very limited use of computing in journalism for decades after 1952.
SLIDE 74 In 1952, the seemingly “revolutionary” deployment of computing in journalism rested, in fact, on a solid base of continuity with the past values and election- night practices of journalists, news
- rganizations, and technologists.
The new technology‟s technical features were less a driving force for adoption than its usefulness as a wonder and as a symbol to enhance the prestige of its adopters.
SLIDE 75
Archival and other sources a.k.a. the treasure hunt …
SLIDE 76
SLIDE 77
SLIDE 78
SLIDE 79
SLIDE 80
The challenges of researching television news history before videotape …
SLIDE 81
SLIDE 82
CBS NBC ABC
SLIDE 83
SLIDE 84
SLIDE 85
SLIDE 87
SLIDE 88
SLIDE 89
SLIDE 90
SLIDE 91 Mike Hally, Electronic Brains: Stories from the Dawn of the Computer Age
SLIDE 92
SLIDE 93 Postscript: Tim Russert‟s white board
http://www.poynterextra.org/TimsTablet/
2000
SLIDE 94
… four years later
SLIDE 95 Video :
Hologram.wmv TV.wmv Weather.wmv Whirlwind.wmv Hopkins.wmv Newsreel.wmv
SLIDE 96
Thank You!
Email: ichinoy@jmail.umd.edu Web: http://bit.ly/Ira_Chinoy Dissertation: http://bit.ly/Battle_of_the_Brains
