Radio: Writing with a Camera

At 2:30 o’clock one afternoon last week, weary television crews snapped off their lights, closed down their cameras and gratefully headed home from Chicago, groggy, red-eyed, aching for sleep. Following the interminable roll calls and floor battles of the Democratic marathon, they had been on the job up to 15 hours a day, a total of 77 hours in six days (v. 70 hours for the Republicans). But they had learned some invaluable lessons in the art of covering fast-breaking news.

Inside the convention hall itself, camera crews and spotters had sharpened their eyes and quickened their reflexes. While the polls and roll calls dragged on, televiewers could see the next moves taking place in countless floor huddles and maneuvers, e.g., the gleaming bald heads of New York’s Jim Farley and Chicago’s Jack Arvey preparing the Illinois break for the seating of Virginia. Other memorable scenes:

¶ Senators Paul Douglas and Estes Kefauver, glumly seated on the platform, waiting for the chance to throw in the towel.

¶ The Louisiana delegation in a secret midnight meeting, caught by an enterprising ABC camera crew through a crack in the wall of the caucus room. ¶ Senator Paul Douglas, hoarse-voiced and face twisted with emotion, shouting for recognition on his motion to adjourn before the balloting could begin. ¶ Democratic Nominee Adlai Stevenson, emerging from the Astor Street house where he had waited out the convention’s decision. For three days a modern journalistic army had bivouacked in the quiet, aristocratic street, setting up a battery of portable telephones and mobile TV transmitters, festooning the elm trees with dangling cables, lights, microphones and reflectors (see NATIONAL AFFAIRS). The result, for the TV audience at least, was well worth it: the contrasting shadows and harsh glare of mobile television lights produced the dramatic background effects of a first-rate documentary.

One story came off as if it had been spliced together in a film cutter’s studio. C. H. (“Joe”) Colledge, directing NBC’s network picture, and CBS’s Don Hewitt called for their Washington mobile units to pick up Harry Truman’s car as it whisked to a stop a few feet from Truman’s private plane. Televiewers watched Truman turn and wave at the precise moment that his alternate, Thomas Gavin, cast the President’s vote in Chicago. A few hours later, mobile trucks caught Truman again, this time at Chicago’s Midway airport. Said Harry Truman (who had a TV set on the plane): “This is the first time a President has been able to see himself get into an airplane, take off, and then land.”

The TV commentators had also profited from their experiences at the Republican Convention. They were a lot less talkative and a lot more informative,* particularly the bird-dogging floor reporters with walkie-talkies, who frequently were able to funnel the news out before the delegates themselves were informed. The convention standout: ABC’s tenacious Martin Agronsky, who developed a knack for catching delegates eager to report the results of their most recent caucus.

But the one man as responsible as anyone for TV’s improved performance last week was ABC’s Bob Doyle, working as pool director for all three networks, coordinating the pickups from seven network cameras on the convention floor. Said Director Doyle: “My job was to tell a story. I just wrote it with those seven cameras. They were just like my fingers.”

*But many viewers preferred to hear radio commentaries and watch their silent TV sets.