Conway essay featured in new book on visual culture of news
Associate professor Mike’ Conway’s essay, “’See It Now’: Television News,” has been published in Getting the Picture: The Visual Culture of the News, edited by Jason E. Hill and Vanessa R. Schwartz, and published this year.
The essay describes two main factors in the early decades that kept TV from realizing its true potential for visualizing the news. The reliance on advertising to fund television news and the journalism profession’s emphasis on the printed word stifled most attempts at a fully-realized visualization of news and public affairs, Conway says.
He also draws on his historical research into broadcast news, explaining how, as early as 1952, CBS’ Edward R. Murrow warned that advertisers would not pay for quality television news.