Indiana University School of Journalism

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For his new book, The Origins of Television News in America: The Visualizers of CBS in the 1940s, assistant professor Mike Conway spent a decade tracking down pioneers of television news. He videotaped many of his interviews with these famous and little-known early broadcasters as he documented the evolution of this then-novel medium from 1941-48.

Here, Conway shares clips from some of the interviews:

Don Hewitt

Don Hewitt

"It was like covering a football game."

Don Hewitt explained why he thought coverage of the 1948 political conventions was such an important moment in the development of television news. After covering sports events, TV producers were ready to tackle a convention, and to do that as well as radio broadcasters. (Hewitt died in 2009. Interview from 2003 by interviewer, Mike Conway and photographer Jim Wrocklage.)

View the clip (2.78MB)

 

Robert Skedgell

Robert Skedgell

"Television was a mystical thing in the sky."

Robert Skedgell, who died in 2006, explained how he was promoted from copy boy to become the first television news writer at CBS in 1941. (Recorded in 2003 by interviewer Mike Conway and photographer Jim Wrocklage.)

View the clip (1.89MB)

Robert Bendick

Robert Bendick

"We learned a great deal, and then we translated that into live cameras."

Robert Bendick, who died in 2008, explained the visual transition from movies to television that he learned while working with Gilbert Seldes and Worthington Miner at the experimental television station at CBS in the late 1930s and early 1940s. (Recorded in 2003 by interviewer and photographer Mike Conway)

View the clip (4.25MB)

Chester Burger

Chester Burger

"He should act like a guest in your living room."

Chester Burger described how the mid-1940s CBS television news staff experimented with different people on camera, trying to learn who would work best on television, finally settling on Douglas Edwards in 1948. (Recorded in 2003 interviewer, Mike Conway and photographer Jim Wrocklage.)

View the clip (5.69MB)

More:

• Read about the new book, The Origins of Television News in America: The Visualizers of CBS in the 1940s.
• Read about Conway’s interviews with Walter Cronkite and Don Hewitt, who moved to television in the early 1950s and whose work set the standard for network news.