Accidental Exposure: KHOU Racism 60 years ago

[Eat News 4745]

(TVNT Nov 2018 Sweeps Original)

 

I was looking for an old film clip in the University of Texas KHOU film archives...

 

In 1989 KHOU donated their news film library to the university. Over the next few years the film clips were viewed and documented, and entered into the historic archives of the university.

 

In the overview on how the films are cataloged, I came across an interesting statement from the people that did all the leg work on the archive project.

 

Under the portion called "Scope and Content" ...

"The titles that have been assigned to each film clip were created by people working at KHOU-TV, probably the camera operators or editors. In many cases, they are not very descriptive of what is actually on the film, and actually tell more about the biases of those working at the station.

Now that peaked my interest. What "biases" could they be talking about?

 

Further down on the page we find "Additional Notes" from the staff of the university. it's an interesting and somewhat embarrassing look into the candid workings of a 1960's TV news operation.

 

WARNING:

This link contains frank language that was common at that time. Only go to the link of you are able to handle the historic yet negative period descriptions of race.

 

https://legacy.lib.utexas.edu/taro/houpub/00022/hpub-00022p1.html

 

We have actually come a long, long way.

I make no judgement, and it should probably be noted that this was not uncommon at the time.. every station is full of questionable story titles.

 

I commend the staff of the university for the way that sanitized the titles, and yet preserved the historical value of the entry's.

 

 

Story slugs/ titles are much more standardized across the various news / edit platforms now , but it's a reminder to remember, that stuff can come back to embarrass you ...

 

...no matter how benign it may have felt...and for long after anyone ever knows.

(end)

[ns8401 941]

(TVNT Nov 2018 Sweeps Original)

 

I was looking for an old film clip in the University of Texas KHOU film archives...

 

In 1989 KHOU donated their news film library to the university. Over the next few years the film clips were viewed and documented, and entered into the historic archives of the university.

 

In the overview on how the films are cataloged, I came across an interesting statement from the people that did all the leg work on the archive project.

 

Under the portion called "Scope and Content" ...

"The titles that have been assigned to each film clip were created by people working at KHOU-TV, probably the camera operators or editors. In many cases, they are not very descriptive of what is actually on the film, and actually tell more about the biases of those working at the station.

Now that peaked my interest. What "biases" could they be talking about?

 

Further down on the page we find "Additional Notes" from the staff of the university. it's an interesting and somewhat embarrassing look into the candid workings of a 1960's TV news operation.

 

WARNING:

This link contains frank language that was common at that time. Only go to the link of you are able to handle the historic yet negative period descriptions of race.

 

https://legacy.lib.utexas.edu/taro/houpub/00022/hpub-00022p1.html

 

We have actually come a long, long way.

I make no judgement, and it should probably be noted that this was not uncommon at the time.. every station is full of questionable story titles.

 

I commend the staff of the university for the way that sanitized the titles, and yet preserved the historical value of the entry's.

 

 

Story slugs/ titles are much more standardized across the various news / edit platforms now , but it's a reminder to remember, that stuff can come back to embarrass you ...

 

...no matter how benign it may have felt...and for long after anyone ever knows.

That is the kind of stuff that the person that wrote it probably didn’t think would last till next week let alone 50 or 60 years... cool stuff...

[dman748 1256]

(TVNT Nov 2018 Sweeps Original)

 

I was looking for an old film clip in the University of Texas KHOU film archives...

 

In 1989 KHOU donated their news film library to the university. Over the next few years the film clips were viewed and documented, and entered into the historic archives of the university.

 

In the overview on how the films are cataloged, I came across an interesting statement from the people that did all the leg work on the archive project.

 

Under the portion called "Scope and Content" ...

"The titles that have been assigned to each film clip were created by people working at KHOU-TV, probably the camera operators or editors. In many cases, they are not very descriptive of what is actually on the film, and actually tell more about the biases of those working at the station.

Now that peaked my interest. What "biases" could they be talking about?

 

Further down on the page we find "Additional Notes" from the staff of the university. it's an interesting and somewhat embarrassing look into the candid workings of a 1960's TV news operation.

 

WARNING:

This link contains frank language that was common at that time. Only go to the link of you are able to handle the historic yet negative period descriptions of race.

 

https://legacy.lib.utexas.edu/taro/houpub/00022/hpub-00022p1.html

 

We have actually come a long, long way.

I make no judgement, and it should probably be noted that this was not uncommon at the time.. every station is full of questionable story titles.

 

I commend the staff of the university for the way that sanitized the titles, and yet preserved the historical value of the entry's.

 

 

Story slugs/ titles are much more standardized across the various news / edit platforms now , but it's a reminder to remember, that stuff can come back to embarrass you ...

 

...no matter how benign it may have felt...and for long after anyone ever knows.

Have you done any research as it pertains to how much these KHOU tapes are worth?

[rkolsen 1684]

Have you done any research as it pertains to how much these KHOU tapes are worth?

 

I’m not sure they’d be worth that much. Sure it’s full of history but other stations covered the same stuff. Stations “donate” their archives to the library when they run out of space or don’t want to pay the price of it being digitized. When digitizing film reels or tapes they have to play out in real time - even if you have multiple tape machines running your still looking at atleast two years of full time work.

 

Hence why they donate it to schools - they get historic video, the stations retain the copyright and rights within market and usually the clips could be sold. The schools probably got a few undergraduates doing volunteer or student work for scholarships to handle the intake.

[bhratbrat 437]

I know in South Florida..they have the Wolfson archive..and I think all SFL stations have an agreement with them to archive their stuff down there.

 

Retired reporter from WTVJ Bob Mayer did this for WTVJ back 2 years ago:

 

[dman748 1256]

I’m not sure they’d be worth that much. Sure it’s full of history but other stations covered the same stuff. Stations “donate” their archives to the library when they run out of space or don’t want to pay the price of it being digitized. When digitizing film reels or tapes they have to play out in real time - even if you have multiple tape machines running your still looking at atleast two years of full time work.

 

Hence why they donate it to schools - they get historic video, the stations retain the copyright and rights within market and usually the clips could be sold. The schools probably got a few undergraduates doing volunteer or student work for scholarships to handle the intake.

Either way, I'm glad they donated those tapes to the local area schools as this goes a long way towards getting students interested in pursuing a career in journalism

[mre29 1522]

Has the library been updated on a rolling basis, or does it end at 1989?

[Rusty Muck 4374]

I know in South Florida..they have the Wolfson archive..and I think all SFL stations have an agreement with them to archive their stuff down there.

 

Retired reporter from WTVJ Bob Mayer did this for WTVJ back 2 years ago:

 

To his credit, Bob Mayer’s also been digitizing his 40 years of tapes from WTVJ and has uploaded a lot to YouTube (under his “thecardsaysmoops” channel). A LOT of cool stuff, especially from the mid-late 70s.

[Guest]

It’s funny this has been brought up on here today, I am shocked more stations don’t hold onto archived tapes or at least make attempts to digitize or donate them to preserve them.

 

At the station I work at, we tried to pull a few tapes we found of a man who killed two other men and was on death row (set to be executed this week) from all the way back in 1983. We had five tapes with the coverage on them, and I watched photographers and editors go through the painstaking process to feed the tape, playing it, winding it back, cleaning the head, playing it again, winding it back, cleaning the head, over and over again.

 

The tapes were in horrible shape, the picture/sound was all but gone but we were able with a bit of cleaning of the dust off the tape after a couple hours of feeding the tape and feeding it again, rewinding, fast forwarding, cleaning the head, replaying, rewinding, fast forwarding, cleaning the head... we managed to pull a few short file clips of the guy at the time, two pictures of the guys he killed, a CGI-Ed map of the crime scene (in all its 80s glory), and a short snippet of a body bag being pulled from a truck right before the tape gave out.

 

Unfortunately, the tapes are in such bad shape (and more are probably like that) that what was once possibly usable is now almost unsalvagable. And it’s all because there is little protection, little climate control, and little interest in preserving these old file tapes.