Radio: Scoops

Scoop

For spot news, U.S. radio now regularly scoops the press. At the Democratic Convention last week, CBS scored a notable scoop, not only on the press but on its airborne rivals.

Press and radiomen were told on Monday that Indiana Senator Samuel Jackson would read President Roosevelt’s long-awaited letter about Henry Wallace to them that night. The press took this in stride. So did all the networks except CBS.

From their fifth-floor headquarters in the Stevens Hotel, CBS engineers began to lay 600 feet of microphone cable. They had to work past NBC’s headquarters, past the rooms of other radiomen. Their rivals suspected nothing. The wire eventually reached the Democratic Committee room on the fourth floor. A microphone was attached to it and hidden in a black bag under a chair. The scoop was all set.

That night, as Senator Jackson prepared to read the President’s letter, CBS Announcer John (“Charley”) Daly popped the hidden mike out of its bag, spoke pre arranged cue words into it (“I want air”), and thrust it in front of the Senator.

While rival networkers boiled and newspapermen scribbled frantically away for future editions, CBS’s Midwestern listen ers got the news first—straight and hot from the Senator’s mouth.