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Broadcast Archives for Historical Research: Revisitingthe Historical MethodDonald G. GodfreyPublished online: 07 Jun 2010.

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Broadcast Archives for Historical Research: Revisiting the Historical Method

Donald G . Godfrey

For almost a century, broadcast programming has reflected and recorded our society, our history, our culture, and even our personal lives. Radio, followed by television and the electronic media, has documented the transformations of our past. Recognizing the historical significance of the broadcast record, Congress mandated the establishment of a radio-television archive.' In the 1960s, with the onslaught of electronic newsgathering, news film archives grew in number and quality. Similarly, the interest in social history and popular culture has led to the growth of television and radio museums across the country (Godfrey, 1992; Hoffnar & Hoffnar, 1989; Murray, 1999). Thus, today's historical scholars have the opportunity to "go beyond the printed descriptions to the primary source material of our age" (Bensman, 1992, p. xviii).

Among the pioneering scholars recognizing a broadcast' as an archival primary resource was Professor Milo Ryan. In February 1956, Ryan stumbled upon a stack of 16-inch electronic transcription radio discs from World War 11. By the time he got them packed and back to the University of Washington, he had a total of 52 Cases of aluminum and glass disks (Ryan, 1956/57).* They revealed an eyewitness history of World War II with more than 2,200 newscasts originating daily from March 1938 through April 1945. There were speeches by Winston Churchill, Franklin D. Roos- evelt, Adolf Hitler, and hundreds of interviews or talks by reporters and personalities from the war period. Ryan dutifully copied the contents to audiotape, catalogued them, and created a computerized search mechanism for easy access to the broad- cast subjects and personalities (Ryan, 1963). He coined the phrase "phonoarchive" as he organized his find (Ryan, 1963). But, when it was all set, few scholars came to use the collection. Lamenting the lack of academic research years later, he wrote, "Here are the materials, where are the scholars?" (Ryan, 1970, np.).

The scholarly challenges that surround the use of broadcast programs as primary sources provide a partial explanation for the lack of scholarly interest in Ryan's archive. Researching broadcast history is like any other analysis: It has as its purpose the discovery of supportable truths. It includes description, analysis, interpretation, and evaluation. When the purpose of the research i s history, the researcher is challenged to amass a body of evidence sufficient to support the facts and the

Donald G. Godfrey, (Ph.D., University of Washington) is a Professor in the Walter Cronkite School of journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University. His research interests include history, programming, and the Canadian media.

Q 2002 Broadcast Education Association journal of Broadcasfing & Electronic Media 46(31, 200.2, pp. 493-503

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researcher’s historical interpretation of events. In the case of critical historiographies, the broadcast scholar’s investigative efforts may warrant what could be a particularly novel or heretofore discounted point of view. These tasks become all the more daunting when one recognizes that there is considerable scholarly skepticism against using broadcast materials as the basis for strong historical arguments.

This article describes some of the methodological challenges that face historians who use broadcast archives and audio and visual collections. By articulating procedures for conducting research with historical programs, the author hopes to encourage scholars to make better use of the many treasures of broadcast history.

The Broadcast as a Suspect Primary Source

The value of the nation‘s broadcast archives to history is recognized by museums, but the record of history the programs contain is st i l l questioned by scholars. Why? Because only a few scholarly researchers actually use them, and because many broadcast programs contain dubious historical information. Often broadcast pro- grams convey dramatic stories that are anecdotal and lack depth. In addition, traditional historians lack sufficient technical and media-process knowledge to utilize mediated material as a primary source of evidence.

The roots of a broadcast program’s questionable historic value date back to the beginnings of the industry and its purposes. The preeminent historical scholar, Allen Nevins, described six types of primary source materials, and the broadcast program was not on the list. His list included: physical remains, orally transmitted materials, representative materials, handwritten materials, printed books and papers, and possibly motion picture film, phonographs and personal observation (Nevins, 1938). These sources were not mutually exclusive and, he noted, ”[llt i s important that a / / available witnesses must be summoned” (Nevins, 1938, pp. 224-225). Broadcast materials were not on the l is t for two reasons. First, Nevins was writing in 1938 when there were few film collections, let alone broadcast archives. Second, and more important, Nevins was suspicious of broadcast programming as a historical re- source-a reservation that is still prevalent today. Indeed, Nevins’ suspicions did not disappear with the maturation of radio and television. In 1958, he was still critical, even about a newspaper’s record of history. He declared that newspapers were ”marred by thinness and spottiness, and overemphasis on editorial personalities and opinions” (Nevins, 1959 reprinted in Billington, 1995, p. 95; Nevins, 1962, pp. 39-49,200-209). It is easy to generalize from Niven’s newspaper view to electronic media.

Despite skepticism, progress has been made in accepting the broadcast media as a valuable historical resource. Arthur Marwick (1989), writing some 30 years after Nivens in The Nature of History, did list radio and television in his group of primary source materials. But then he skeptically added, “It is all too easy to be bewitched by the attractiveness of visual sources of all sorts”, p. 325). Marwick‘s position continues

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to underscore the dangers for mainstream historians who might be enchanted by radio and television materials.

Contemporary discussions of historiography include little on the use of such representational records. Alice Kessler-Harris (1 990) noted that the new social historians had "expanded their search to include new sources" (p. 168), and Asa Briggs (1 984), a British media and social historian, indicated that evidence of every kind-from all kinds of documents "visual and oral" (p. 7)-must be examined. But there has been no substantive scholarly discussion as to how a historical researcher might approach these broadcast treasures of history.

Historians are rightly suspicious of broadcast sources because the primary purpose of broadcasting i s not history. US. newscasts and entertainment programs are primarily shelf space upon which the more important product-commercial spots-is placed without apology. The record of broadcast news is indeed thin by Nivens' standards. A drama may be founded in history, but dramatization, for sensational effect, creates distortion at the expense of historical fact.

Such criticism of media dramatizations as historical-fact conveyors cannot be refuted. The historical record, as seen within television and radio, has indeed been exploited in favor of commercialism. Hollywood films-such as Pearl Harbor, Titanic, IFK, and Nixon-all have their roots in factual events, and all have also been criticized for dramatically distorting those events. Indeed, the details of historical reality can be boring. There is a commercial necessity for dramatization and editing, thus blurring the lines between historical and fact-based programming and historical fictions that have commercial objectives. It is unfortunate that when dramatization enters into the creative process, too often the "facts and their probability even plausibility are steadily ignored" (Barzun & Craff, 1985, p. 120). The audience too often is less than discriminative and construes dramatization as fact.

On the other hand, traditional historians have prematurely discriminated against broadcast materials, thereby missing historical intrigue, because they have dismissed the whole genre as merely dramatic. Although historical films and broadcasts cannot be taken naively due to the creator's potential "sleight of hand," neither should they all be ignored (Marwick, 1989, p. 31 9). The historical documentaries of Nanook, The Plow That Broke the Plains, and NBC's The Twisted Cross, accurately reflected life at critical times in history. More recently, Africans in America, The Civil War, One Woman One Vote, and Vietnam: A Television History have told factual stories of common people and the events of their times.3 Today's news broadcasts and broadcast magazines may still suffer from thinness, but they are typically based in fact.

Of equal importance to the criticisms of shallow reporting, commercialism, and dramatic distortion is the fact that general historians are nervous about the broadcast source because they lack contextual understanding of electronic media processes. First, they lack the technical know-how to deal with the myriad differing technolog- ical formats that have come and gone over the past eight decades. Conducting historical research and drawing inferences from the broadcast record requires the

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researcher to,employ a wide “range of critical techniques . . . [and] technical skills” (Marwick, 1989, p. 31 3). It necessitates an understanding of the technological capacities of the times. Using historical technology requires a time commitment, an understanding of context, and a knowledge of how the technology operated. The researcher must not only have access to the technology to read the broadcast record but also understand the limits of the technology within its era in order to interpret that record conscientiously. All too often it is much easier to use a printed source for the information. This is because print is an older, more conventionally stable medium that has explicit conventions. Researchers have been trained to use it, and it is, therefore, seemingly less historically ambiguous.

More importantly, the traditional historian often lacks the requisite understanding of the broadcast medium’s creative processes. This lack of knowledge makes the verification of facts and participants illusive. It is often difficult to separate fact from fiction, especially when the researcher fails to understand the influence of the technological mechanism, people involved throughout, and the creative process itself. For example, understanding the artistic process followed within the creation of a program helps the media historian unravel the facts from the more creative elements and conventional devices of a broadcast. It also enables a historian to identify and analyze the differing influences within the program. Peeling away the layers of dramatization may reveal a very accurate description of a historical setting. In the movie Titanic, the media historian gets a brief glimpse of a ship-to-shore radio room. The room was well done using equipment portrayals of the era. Even the short glimpse of the room within the dramatic context provides the student of history with an appreciation for ship-to-shore communication.

As information passes through the various stages of production, each step in that creative process must be analyzed in terms of the information’s value as evidence and the effect of individuals within the process. This is necessary to understand the effect the process itself has had on the information presented. This process is not significantly different from traditional historical research-the challenge to search for supportable truths is st i l l paramount. But the sources and stages of information delivery differ from those of printed media. In this sense, a trained media historian, who has a historic understanding of production practices, can separate the dramatic chaff from the historic fruits and, thereby, help to overcome the blanket skepticism of traditional historians.

Finally, investigators who are attempting to use a program, or aspects of a program, as a primary source must deal with one final contextual aspect of a program. They must be able to track and document the origins of that program information just as they would with any other type of primary source. This is not an easy task because, unlike print media where attribution and referencing are part and parcel of the writer‘s research process, broadcast producers typically do not maintain a detailed traceable record. The investigator must not only understand the creative- developmental process as a prerequisite to separating, where necessary, the drama

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from the documentary evidence but also be prepared to do even more digging to unearth the origins of broadcast information.

Sources and Historical Authenticity

Historic truths must be discovered within all of the available evidence. The challenge is the same, but a broadcast program introduces special considerations required for evaluating the evidence it provides. The researcher must first trace the roots of the program evidence and then carefully document the authenticity of the information as a primary source. In meeting these challenges, the broadcast historian can take a lesson from oral historians. The traditional historian, for example, places a greater value on contemporary diaries and personal writings than oral history interviews. The oral historian’s interview is a questionable source, but when the information from the interview is substantiated through other evidentiary accounts, the oral history interview adds both substance and personal color to the historical record. Note how in Allen’s (2001) research News Is People, oral history interviews are supported by primary research documents. Similar documentary procedures may be used in establishing authenticity for broadcast sources. In historical research, all available witnesses must be summoned.

The most important differentiation to be made in determining primary and secondary broadcast materials i s the authenticity of the source. This gains added emphasis when using a broadcast source because of the well-founded skepticism surrounding the medium. Bormann (1 969) noted that the oral historian’s challenge was similar to the news reporter‘s situation: “When the reporter writes of what he or she has personally observed, be it printed or broadcast, he or she becomes a primary source” (p. 173). However, the reporter is a secondary source when the information reported comes from “informed observers or sources close to the government, and ’undisclosed sources”’ (p. 1 73). Herb Morrison‘s recording of the Hindenburg disaster i s clearly a primary source. Morley Safer reporting on the evacuation airlift from Vietnam is also a primary source. Bernard Shaw‘s first-hand accounts of the Persian Gulf War in 1991 and Christiane Amanpour’s relentless reporting from the battlefields of the Middle East are all excellent examples of primary source materials (Public Broadcasting System, 1997). However, these same people reporting almost the same facts, in retrospect, become secondary source figures in their quotation of other participant observers. Thus, as news programs begin to intermingle their sources, and as time passes between the event and the record, it i s often challenging to determine the authenticity of the broadcast materials.

The authenticity of any primary document can always be called into question: Could the document be a forgery? Has someone tampered with the evidence for selfish purposes? These concerns are not new to radio and television. Some letters attributed to President Abraham Lincoln have been called forgeries (Angel, 1929). A

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forensic analyst was called in to examine early Mormon Church documents when it was discovered that a private collector was forging materials for commercial exploi- tation (Sillitoe & Roberts, 1988). Although these examples may seem distant, even irrelevant, to the broadcast historian, they are not. In broadcasting, it is the skills of production-editing and recording events-that have undermined the authenticity of historical program resources. William S. Paley (1 979), longtime head of CBS, held tight to his early policy that his network would not record its radio programming from the 1920s into the 1940s. Programming, to be authentic, had to be live; to record and replay a program called its authenticity into question. To contemporary pro- ducers this policy seems almost silly, but the question of historical authenticity remains a valid one. The researcher must determine what part others play in the formulation of the broadcast document: the unnamed writers, editors, and technical people. Their efforts are all subject to tests of authenticity as the record of their role i s uncovered.

The tests of authenticity include comparative witnesses, truthfulness, time and place of the observations, the point of view of the presenter, and the relevant influences of the production process. Comparative witness means factually verifying the information from other comparative, and perhaps competitive, sources. The broadcast historian must scrutinize the data and compare it to other known primary sources. The time, place, and proximity requirements of evidence can help assess the object and situation in relation to their environment. The further away from the event that the record i s made, the more likely that external data influenced the record and the more complex the evaluation of authenticity. “The closer the time of making a document to the event it records, the better it is likely to be for historical purposes” (Gottschalk, 1969, pp. 150-1 55).

The very nature of broadcast news reporting, where immediacy i s so important, also infuses great value into a broadcast news resource. Thus, Edward R. Murrow’s report of the allies’ capture of Buchenwald on April 12, 1945, the day the troops marched into the camp, is of more historic value than his well-known and colorful correspondence report that aired April 15, 1945. The further away from the event the record was made, the more the historical analyst bears the responsibility of sum- moning additional witnesses to determine the value of the record. The time reference must also be considered along with other variables surrounding it-the total context and the process. Lengthy periods of time and the extended production process of dramatic television make this a challenging undertaking. Even in news programming, the challenge is not simple. If the reporter seems to toss editorial intonations into his or her delivery, the analyst must examine the value of the reporter as a source. Was the reporter biased? Was he or she in a position to observe the facts? Unfortunately, today the researcher also must deal with the ego of the reporter as an eyewitness. Did the reporter recount the facts, or did his or her actions affect the facts as they were presented? Are they reporting the news, or are they the object of news? If there was distortion, it must be examined. These are serious ethical as well as complex historiographical questions.

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The Unique Demands of Broadcast Artifacts

Radio and television are primarily media of information and art. They do not fit easily into the tests of critical, legal, or historical evidence. They are affected by economies and law, technology and science, audience and entertainment, and public trust and politics. The electronic media are themselves a collection of dichotomies; nevertheless, they deserve serious historical analysis. Nevins' analogy between historical research and the courtroom procedure is an accurate one, particularly in relation to a discussion of the authenticity of the primary source (Nevins, 1962, pp. 224-225). The historian must distinguish among resources of documentation as a lawyer in the courtroom distinguishes between original evidence and rumor. The tests of evidence vary, necessarily depending on the object and circumstances of the trial. So it i s with the process of historical discovery-the principles of evidence vary with witnesses and circumstances. Bormann (1 969) indicated much the same in his analogy between historical research and the news reporter. The reporter must "discriminate between statements of fact, statements of opinion, value and ethics. . . [Tlhe grounds upon which the historian makes a judgment . . . in the end comes down to the facts that can be observed" and the tests of evidence (Bormann, 1969, pp. 169-1 70).

Contextual information about the art of broadcasting is perhaps nowhere more important than in photography, cinema, photojournalism, and videography. Visual image-makers, no matter what their genre, are a vital link in gathering information. They represent the pen and paper of the broadcast record. In a news broadcast situation, the sights and sounds of an event are gathered by the camera person-in a movie they frame the story, one film frame at a time. The visuals in both media are priceless historical records. Don Brown, for example, gave his life to bring news of the Jonestown massacre. His camera kept rolling, even though he was mortally wounded. David Crockett threw a video camera over his shoulder while running away from Mount St. Helens and captured some of the most dramatic footage ever seen of a mountain's eruption. In 1969, the world was eyewitness to human's landing on the moon (National Aeronautics and Space Administration, 1969; Co- lumbia Broadcasting System, 1989).

In evaluating visual documents, the electronic-media historian can learn from the still-photo historian (Kyvig & Marty, 1982). The intent of the photographer as creator or author of the information is paramount. Careful investigation is required to (a) recognize the effects of framing within the visual story-the relevant details within the background, middle ground, and foreground; (b) evaluate the effects of any photographic or technological influences, such as lens and computer-graphics effects; and (c) consider the technological capacity at the time of the recording. In addition to these elements of still-photographic analysis, the broadcast historian must assess the elements of sound and motion as well as sound and picture editing upon the moving visual record.

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Documenting the Electronic Media Record

Citing broadcast materials includes the necessary challenge of simple, yet thor- ough, documentation. Nowhere in historiography is the footnote more important than when the researcher uses a broadcast program as a primary resource. Research- ers must show how the layers of information and creative dramatization were created by peeling back the production process to authenticate and contextualize the program's fidelity to real events. In doing so, the researcher not only informs the reader but also lays the groundwork for future discovery.

In traditional text-based histories, five broad information types must be available from any cited reference. These five items are paralleled in the broadcast record: (a) author, editor, and article (writer, producer, director, editor); (b) material cited, article, chapter, and book (program title); (c) location of the material, publisher (network, production house, distributor), and archive (where future researchers may gain access); (d) date of publication (air date); and (e) direct page reference to the citation (where possible the use o f specific reference information such as time codes). In broadcast history, because the source i s already suspect, any omissions in documentation weaken the credibility of the source and the author's argument. The reference for a broadcast program will probably look more like the print citation of a library special collection than that of a typical book or article. Although the broadcast program citation may initially look a little different in print, the individual elements that comprise full documentation are essential to establish the validity of the source.

Just as with a print citation, there are unspoken but very important hierarchies. For example, print material cited for the New York Times is considered more valuable as a source than a vanity-press publication. Similarly, a broadcast program from an institutional archive is more valuable than the author's personal collection, and an unedited radio disc becomes more important than an edited audiotape recording. This is so because producers could not edit the aluminum and/or glass radio discs of the 1930s and 1940s as they could with more contemporary analog and digital records. Thus, the evidence acquired within the unedited film and video is en- hanced. Similarly, the availability of film and video outtakes, raw or preliminary scripts, and developmental materials complement documentation and add to histor- ical value. The citation i s the point where the researcher verifies factual information without cluttering the narrative of the text. It is also wise to add supporting comparative documentation to any citation when authenticity i s in question. These supportive materials strengthen the validity of the presentation.

Modeling Historical Studies

For historians, even critical I y oriented historians, the object and situation take center stage. The object is the nucleus of the study. The situation is the unique

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environment surrounding the object. The object could be a person, an event, the theme of an era, or whatever. The object often comes to the foreground in response to a situation within which the object exists. For example, the radio reporting of Edward R. Murrow becomes more important because of World War II. In contrast, the history of the television programs jeopardy or the Wheel of Fortune could be written, but their significance differs as they become examples or artifacts of popular culture. In historical research, as in rhetorical, the justification for the study of the object and the situation depends upon the historical relationship of people, events in time, and other objects (Bitzner, pp. 9-12).

Nevins (1 938, pp. 195-1 96), in The Gateway tu History, indicated that there are few fixed methods in the historical-research process. That statement i s particularly true when dealing with the history of broadcasting, but it i s misleading. Broadcasting is still comparatively young, and there are few historical traditions and conventions for dealing with it. However, in developing critical analysis, historical argument, and even simple historical description, critical methods and patterns do exist, and there is precedent for using them. For example, the researcher may adopt the criteria of Dondis (1 973) or Zettl (1 990) to explain and evaluate historically important visuals. These authors break down the elements of visual style to focus on their communi- cation aspects. Orlik (2002) provides patterns for professionals and consumers with regard to aesthetics, sociology, philosophy, psychology, structure, and the industry. Phifer's (1961) work in speech and theater suggests there are seven types of history: biographical, movement studies, regional studies, institutional studies, case histories, selected studies, and editorial studies. Similarly, methods of analysis may be bor- rowed from ethics, literature, film, and rhetorical criticism. Models exist in business, art, and economic histories. Our options are diverse. The challenge in utilizing a critical model is to be sure the model is appropriate to the object.

Journal literature also provides patterns and illustrations. In each case, a pattern or method of critical analysis is superimposed upon a historical object. The pattern assists in focusing the examination of an object. For example, pioneering stations may be measured against criteria established by Baudino and Kittross (1 977). Similarly, the analysis could be structured using the work on Congressional maneu- vering by Cain (1954), the broader movement studies of Griffin (1952), or the documentary studies by Murray (1 975). Godfrey (1 990) used the traditional descrip- tive model and original broadcasts to examine radio's first newscast. Stelzner (1 966) relied on elements of linguistics to analyze Franklin D. Roosevelt's December 8, 1941, Declaration of War. It i s not always easy to find a clear-cut model that may be simply applied to a historical object. But the critical historiography does present research-tested patterns that may help measure or analyze a broadcast program.

Although broadcast archival materials require time and an extended technological understanding, they are rich in history and potential. Generally speaking, historical electronic media scholarship must meet the standards of traditional history-re- searchers should deal with the broadcast program as they would any other primary source. Due to the widespread skepticism toward broadcast programming as a

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primary source and due to i ts commercial exploitation, researchers must also take extra care to authenticate their efforts through contextual documentation and support for their evidential claims. Taking their lessons from oral and photographic histori- ans, broadcast researchers must peal back the mediated layers of entertainment and information to reveal the historic content. This is particularly important as we enter an age when digital technologies will provide even more aural and visual informa- tion. The new digital record wil l not only present scholars with opportunities to integrate elements of broadcast materials into their research but also demand careful and diversified documentation to authenticate those materials.

’ The Library of Congress Film and Television, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division houses one of the largest broadcast archives. It reported over 75,000 titles in 1992 and grows by several thousand each year.

* The Milo Ryan Phonoarchives are now housed at the National Archive. These are common films and television programs, most of which can be found in a local

library or university collections.

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