The American Newsreel

For the first fifty years of film history, the newsreel was a fixture in American movie theaters. These short segments released twice a week and lasting only about ten minutes, contained a potpourri of news footage representing a unique combination of journalism and entertainment. With the advent of television news programs following World War II, newsreels became obsolete though they did not die immediately. These shorts remain the first instances of moving image photographic journalism and for over five decades proved a unique and influential source of information - and misinformation - for generations of American moviegoers. Encompassing the years from 1911 to 1967, this history details the full span of the American newsreel. It discusses the European - developed "actualities" which were the forerunners of American newsreels and explores the ways in which the production of the American version changed over time. Ultimately a source of entertainment, newsreels were at best sterile representations of an event and at worst outright re-creations or frauds.
This revised third edition contains all the insights of the original text with an additional chapter which explores the ethical and unethical use of newsreels in contemporary television documentaries. New photographs and an enlarged bibliography are also included.