Evening star., 1955-01-02
Associated Press Wirephoto Hos 2Oth Birthday;
First Picture Showed D. c. Survivor Of Crash
Initial Transmission
Starting Here M1s
Sfor 5 Shot Of copitoI

ofuf 5 9n0t OF (oplfol
Two decades ago. an afrlinel
carrying q Washington man and
three other passengers crashed
In the snowy Adirondacks.
Within 8 minutes after an
aerial photo Of the doWned plane
reached New York City, q mega
tive was received by The Stars
picture desk and appeared Ii the
newspaper 20 years ago yester-
day. ss
II was the first picture trans-
nlitted over Associated Press
Wirephoto "a globe circling
stride in Journalism that has
brought the camera as close TO
the news as the reporters note
book.
The same day, January /. 1885.
d photo Of the Capitol's lighted
dome. framed by snow-covered
bougfls and taken by q Star pho
tographer, went out over 10000
miles Of telegraph wire. IN the
same time, 5 minutes. It was
received by 80 newspapers In Is
cities as the first picture trans.
nitted out Of washington.
History III y Flash.
Wirephotc, as Associated Press
Writer Saul Pett describes Its
20-year epochal history, is "a
huge dirigible 1.-THE HindenbergJ
exploding In nlid-air. Cham
berlain, Hitler, Mussolini and
Daladier posing for the shame
Of Munich. "A half-suak battle-
ship smoking at Pearl Harbor.
The backs Of rlameless GIs
stofming Omaha Beach. Marines
raising the flag at Two Jima,
The slumped shoulders Of Babe
Ruth retiring to die. The rnon-I
strous white mushroom billoWing
UP from Bikini the new. the
old. the day-to-day. the epic and
the sidelong glance"
It has meant that within
minutes. newspapers over the
Nation and the world have had
photographs Of the havoc
wrought when q runaway train
crashed into Union Station: the
death and destruction which
met the cameras eye after q
Bolivian fighter plane and an
Eastern airliner crashed In the
approaches to National Airport.
$4,000 Miles of wire.
Today, the spot news pictures
Of Washingtorls inauglirals, its
Worldwide pulicy-nlaking and
Its visiting potentates 60 to more
than 500 newspapers and tele-
vision stations in the United.
States and Canada. Il travels
over IS 1000 miles Of wire.
It Is linked with the rest Of
the free world through CONNER
cial radio facilities and never
did this link serve more spec-.
tacularly than It did during the
British coronation Of 1853
London transmitted pictures
by radio which were piped ST.
inultaneously into the domestic
Wirephoto network. AT the same
time that American members
were receiving London's pictures.
San Francisco was radioiug
them to Pacific points.
London Tokyo in . Minutes.
Thur, an sxi0 photo went from
L0hden to Tokyo over 4. 600
miles in 8minutes.
Today. Associated Press Wire-
photo averages about 65 different
pictures q day. Z days q week
and So weeks q year.
During the years before. news
pictures were running as much
as "a hours behind the news
itself. Air express took "a hours.
In the l920s. an experiment
was tried to speed this lag, using
q telephone. At one end Of the
line, man set up transparent
grid over 4 photograph before
him. AT the other end, q man
had q blank sheet Of paper. the
same size as the photo, and q
grid over it.
Shaded Grid Squares.
The first man described the
squares under his grid as black.
white or gray and the second
man merely shaded his grid
squares according to the tele-
phoned description. They ended
up with q drawing with some
resemblance to the original.
Later. laboratories Of the
American Telephone y Tele-
graph Co., developed q limited
commercial system fol. moving
pictures over phone wires, but
transmission was slow and the
results indistinct.
BY 1888 Bell laboratories an
nounced q picture-sending device