TFTP On This Day: "Camel News Caravan" from NBC (Sep. 19, 1952)

Posted to YouTube by user 'Ben Model'

It Was 65 Years Ago Today: "Camel News Caravan" was the first high-profile television news program. Before its Feburary 1949 debut (and in some respects for some time afterwards), TV news consisted largely of broadcasts of newsreels produced for movie theaters or very brief broadcasts (usually five-minutes long) of readings of headlines. There are some of those things in "Camel News Caravan", but it was nonetheless a pioneering news program for a few reasons--because of its longtime sponsorship by Camel cigarettes; because of its increasingly televisual presentational style; and because of its anchor, John Cameron Swayze, who became the first well-known TV newsman.

In this particular day's newscast, the lead news is the brouhaha related to then-Vice Presidential nominee Richard Nixon's allegedly improper use of campaign funds. This incident would result a few days afterwards (on Sep. 23) in the TV broadcast of Nixon's famous "Checkers speech". Other stories featured in this newscast include a new military base in Greenland, an earthquake on Wake Island in the Pacific, and the latest in women's fashions.

There's much here that looks somewhat odd to us now. Having a sponsored newscast is incredibly jarring now, especially with it being a cigarette brand like Camel. The presentational style seems a bit stilted, and it's clear that given the newsgathering practices at the time that the stories presented in this newscast aren't exactly breaking news.