Note: For some background on the new digital collection discussed below see our post from November 26, 2013.
From the University of North Texas:
In the early days of news on NBC 5/KXAS-TV, the anchors read from scripts as black-and-white footage appeared on television screens, to explain the story to viewers. “The Texas News” program on what was then WBAP-TV was the first newscast in Texas and the Southwest
The University of North Texas Libraries will preserve almost 30 years of the station’s news footage from 1950 to 1979 and the original broadcast scripts on the Portal to Texas History, which the libraries created to provide online access to historic materials from archives, historical societies, small and large libraries, museums and private collections from all areas of Texas.
NBCUniversal Owned Television Stations, the owner of NBC 5 in the North Texas region, has contributed $275,000 toward digitizing the film for the Portal to Texas History. Tom Ehlmann, NBC 5 president and general manager, said the UNT Libraries staff members who manage the portal are “doing remarkable work to make history available to so many.”
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With 10,000 reels of film and approximately 219,000 pages of scripts, the NBC 5 archive has the potential to become the largest online repository of local television news in the country, said Morgan Gieringer, director of Special Collections for the UNT Libraries.
Gieringer said the news clips, shot on 16mm film, have not been seen by the general public since they originally aired. Placing the footage on the portal will not only preserve the film, which has been deteriorating for many years, but also provide younger generations with a view of events that happened before their lifetimes.
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Five weeks of news footage and scripts from August 1956 and early September 1956 have already been digitized and placed on the portal as part of a pilot project. Gieringer said Todd Moye, UNT professor of history, suggested that footage from this time period be placed on the Portal to Texas History first because of a civil rights decision that happened in Mansfield – a court order for desegregation of the high school. A news clip shows Mansfield residents’ reactions to the court order. Angry mobs surround the high school and effigies of African Americans hang above the front door of the school and at the top of the flagpole.
Other news stories that are already on the Portal to Texas History include:
Texas delegates leaving for the 1956 Democratic National Convention
Vice President Richard Nixon making an appearance in Dallas
The pianist Liberace visiting a jewelry store in Dallas
A local woman recounting her rescue from the Andrea Doria, an Italian ocean liner that had sunk a week earlier on July 26, 1956, with more than 1,700 passengers and crew saved.
Read the Complete UNT Announcement
Direct to KXAS Collection on Portal to Texas History
Review Other Collections Available via Portal to Texas History
About Gary Price
