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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

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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...‟ "

Poster in St. Louis, 1916

The New York Times , 1860

The New York Times , Nov. 12, 1864

1911

Ad for the N.Y. Herald In the N.Y. Times, 1890

The New York Herald, 1890

N.Y. Herald election-night display, Madison Square ( Harper’s Weekly , May 20, 1888)

Times Square on Election Night, circa 1904

The New York Times 1904

N.Y. Tribune, 1896

Reproduced in: “Whistles, Crowds and Free Silver – The Election of 1896” Thomas C. Buckley, Ramsey County History , Fall 1992

N.Y. Times , 1908

St. Louis Post-Dispatch , Nov. 3, 1920

The New York American 1916

New York American, Nov. 8, 1916

Detroit News, 1920

1920: The launch of KDKA in Pittsburgh …

The New York Times, 1928

The New York Times , Nov. 7, 1928

The New York Times , Nov. 8, 1944

N.Y. Herald , 1860 N.Y. Herald , 1864

N.Y. Tribune, 1896

NBC TV election-night planning memo, 1948

The stakes in 1952 Intersecting and competing agendas in the quest for attention, prestige and reputation

1948

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In 1952, the pioneers of journalism on 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.

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…

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.

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 of ideas about what computers ought to be and who ought 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.

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 ….

1946: ENIAC‟s coming out party, complete with iconic blinking lights, got lots of attention… 1951: Murrow “interviews” the MIT Whirlwind on “See It Now.” Whirlwind.wmv

UNIVAC co- inventor John Mauchly‟s quest to reach ordinary people with something meaningful to them: October 1952: Johns Hopkins Science Review, “Can Machines Think.” Hopkins.wmv

Networks teamed up with computer makers and ran newspaper ads with bold claims about the computers and their upcoming election-night roles.

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.

“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 over 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

Ahead of the 1952 vote: Suspense, or at least the hedging of bets

Across the country, banner headlines on election day, 1952:

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1952 Election Night UNIVAC on CBS Monrobot on NBC TV.wmv Weather.wmv

Also ran: IBM, ABC and The New York World- Telegram and Sun

Responses? They varied widely within the ranks of the networks, the computer companies, reporters inside and outside television, the critics and the public

Just what happened? The danger of received versions … … and a cautionary tale about documents

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Does it matter?

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 of responses… The degree to which the new automatically replaces the old … Vs. the degree which they may be deployed side by side

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.

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 organizations, 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.

Archival and other sources a.k.a. the treasure hunt …

The challenges of researching television news history before videotape …

CBS NBC ABC

Newsreel.wmv

Mike Hally, Electronic Brains: Stories from the Dawn of the Computer Age

Postscript: Tim Russert‟s white board 2000 http://www.poynterextra.org/TimsTablet/

… four years later

Video : Hologram.wmv TV.wmv Weather.wmv Whirlwind.wmv Hopkins.wmv Newsreel.wmv

Thank You! Email: ichinoy@jmail.umd.edu Web: http://bit.ly/Ira_Chinoy Dissertation: http://bit.ly/Battle_of_the_Brains