Tom Read and WHO News
During the late 1950s and early 1960s
By George F. Davison, Jr. and Tom ReadPage 3
WHO-TV went on the air in 1954.A lot of experimentation was conducted. Those in television were trying to figure out what worked, and what did not. Television newscasts relied upon heavily upon radio.
Tom:
I used to do the 8:25 a.m. cut-in on the Today show. It was done from the studio with either Vern Modeland or me from the news set but just reading carbons of radio stories carried earlier on radio ending with the weather. Most mornings it was all on camera with no visuals.
It was decided that it wasn't worth the effort to bring in a TV camera operator, warm up the camera, white balance it, throw on the studio lights and test the microphone just for a three minute newscast.
So we were directed to do the cut-in from the TV announce booth using the Bal-Optican (This was a device used to project still pictures and graphic images.). It was done this way: We had some white cards with an outline of Iowa printed on them. We would take them and using regular newsroom typewriters, some with misaligned type faces, type in a headline to correspond with the story we were reading. There would be three or four of these. For the weather, we would pop outside about 8:15a.m. and take a picture of Walnut street looking west on a Polaroid camera. If it was raining, it would show rain, snow or sunshine. Almost always in the picture was the bar and grill across the street from the station because if it was raining we would shoot the picture under the station canopy to stay dry. The only shot possible was of the run down bar and grill across the street. The bar loved it. They got free publicity.
The whole operation was done in a hurry. Either Vern Modeland or I would do the "How's The Weather" segment on radio at 8:00 A.M. It was a very complete weather program for radio in those days. We had the Weather Bureau's local teletype, but we liked to give current conditions from around WHO's large coverage area. The only way to get the current conditions was to listen to the voice broadcast on low frequency from the Des Moines airport. We had to obtain the information at 7:45 A.M. by putting on headphones and listening to the voice rundown. We filled out a chart with major cities on it, listing the current temperatures, sky condition and general weather. You had to listen carefully because it was only given once. This was fine on a good day, but if thunderstorms were in the area, the signal crackled and popped making you press the earphone to your ear to make out the information.
The 8:25 A.M. TV cut-in was prepared AFTER the "How's the Weather" program. There was not much time to type headlines and catch a fast Polaroid. Sometimes, the headlines were a little off the mark but fine if they fit inside the outline of Iowa on the card. One morning in haste, I typed "Thousands Flee Flu." This made the "Over the Coffee" column in the Des Moines Register.
50's TV News Set (believe it or not)Here is the way that Tom describes WHO-TV news set during the "black and white" era:
Tom:
Unlike the elaborate and expensive sets now utilized for local television news, the WHO-TV news set in the 1960s consisted of a flat mounted on wheels that could be moved out of the way when the newscast was over. A feature was a rear-screen projection system where art cards or wirephotos could be placed on a tray in the projector and the image put on the screen to the right of the newscaster. When no visuals were to be used, the bamboo curtains could be pulled over the screen.WHO reporters carried Graflex cameras and shot still pictures. These could be quickly processed and used to illustrate a story.
Big Graflex Camera
Tom:
"Several of us in the newsroom carried the big Graflex cameras which had a 4 X 5 sheet negative. Most fires and accidents were covered that way. We often would 'soup' the film, slam it into an enlarger and run to the studio with a print still dripping fix liquid." Motion picture film was also used. Black and white television and black and white film offered some advantages over color (WHO-TV acquired color television cameras and color film equipment in the late 1960s. Some NBC network broadcasts were in color in the late 1950s and early 1960s.).
On the early evening news one or two 16mm films might be used. The pictures were shot on Dupont 931 film and processed in a small, table-top processor called the Mini-mite. The reversal film was processed negative with the control room turning the image into a positive picture.Occasionally a sound-on-film story would be shown, unless the Auricon camera was needed to record the network news for delay. The result was a Kinescope. The camera was mounted on a modified tri-pod and looked at a special TV tube which was set up for high contrast. And woe-be unto the newsroom personnel who forgot to load a 15 minute film magazine onto the camera and turn it on in time to catch the NBC newscast.
The Auricon camera had an option of recording the sound track either variable area or variable density. There was always an argument among the engineers which system had the best fidelity. Generally one system was used on the Kinescopes while the other was preferred for recording in the field.
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