Wednesday, November 05, 2003
1960s Terre Haute Election Reporting Remembered
I was invited to watch the vote analysis TV show in the computer room of Eastern Motors after polls closed in 1965 or 66, one of the first local elections covered by television.
On that Election Day, unofficial results from each polling place were telephoned to an operator who wrote them on a slip of paper; key punch operator punched them on card; computer operators batched then fed cards to the tabulating program; a report was printed on the line printer and the Election Reporter read it on TV and gave his analysis. Just before the cameras were turned on, the TV folks, Eastern Motors management and the Data Processing staff huddled. TV wanted the tapes to spin - not do anything, just spin - so they would have some moving parts to film. Since the vote analysis program did not use the tapes, the group decided to have a computer operator manually spin them. He would open the maintenance door, jammed a grommet against the vacuum switch of each of 6 tape drives and closed the door. Viewers at home saw high speed tapes spinning forwards and backwards to simulate computer "thought".
I learned that TV news is first and foremost show business and began to understand that TV news was not just news on TV but news made to fit the media.
Today's news that may or may not fit the media: Todd Nation won as 4th District Councilman in Terre Haute. Congrats, Todd.
On that Election Day, unofficial results from each polling place were telephoned to an operator who wrote them on a slip of paper; key punch operator punched them on card; computer operators batched then fed cards to the tabulating program; a report was printed on the line printer and the Election Reporter read it on TV and gave his analysis. Just before the cameras were turned on, the TV folks, Eastern Motors management and the Data Processing staff huddled. TV wanted the tapes to spin - not do anything, just spin - so they would have some moving parts to film. Since the vote analysis program did not use the tapes, the group decided to have a computer operator manually spin them. He would open the maintenance door, jammed a grommet against the vacuum switch of each of 6 tape drives and closed the door. Viewers at home saw high speed tapes spinning forwards and backwards to simulate computer "thought".
I learned that TV news is first and foremost show business and began to understand that TV news was not just news on TV but news made to fit the media.
Today's news that may or may not fit the media: Todd Nation won as 4th District Councilman in Terre Haute. Congrats, Todd.
