Dawn of the Eye

Traces the beginnings of the filmed-news industry from the development of the movie camera by the Lumière brothers in 1895. Within ten years, cutthroat news companies were in competition throughout the world. Newsreels graduated from vaudeville audiences to millions of movie-goers. Much of what people saw in this era, however, was actually staged by pre-Hollywood film studios. Rare footage includes some of the first images ever recorded on film.

Hollywood studios initially presented sanitized news as if the Depression or a growing Nazi threat did not exist. However, the March of Time theater newsreel company soon revolutionized the medium by establishing many of the standards still used by contemporary news organizations. News agencies were so proficient and numerous that World War II became a contest for public opinion among the various news machines. Includes footage of D-Day.

No one knew quite what to do with television news until radio news veterans introduced controversial subjects such as racial segregation. Then the public began watching in droves. The Senate anti-communist hearings conducted by Senator Joseph McCarthy in the 1950s drew thousands to their television sets each day. These innovations sparked public and private controversies, including the BBC battle with the British government over whether media information should be controlled by the state.

By the early 1960s, television was the dominant source of news in North America. It provided publicity for the forces of protest and political opposition to such an extent that some claim the civil rights and anti-war movements could not have succeeded without it.

In the golden years of network news and the birth of the satellite age, "going live" became the order of the day, and anchormen and anchorwomen became mega-stars. TV news became a factor in events at Tiananmen Square and the Berlin Wall, as images were used to affect the tide of public opinion. Many predicted little success for television mogul Ted Turner's international news venture, CNN. Critics accused TV news of generally promoting sensationalism and violence.

The Gulf War demonstrated the global nature of television news, and how its presence can shape the events it witnesses. As new global news titans vie for network supremacy, the medium is fundamentally changing. Will network news remain the watchdog of democracy or lose its position to other media?