the.com/newsreel
history's first viral feed, played for crowds who'd never seen the news move before
means A short film of recent news events, screened in cinemas before the main feature in the era before television brought the news home.
from A straightforward compound of 'news' and 'reel' — the literal physical reel of film onto which the footage was spooled. 'News' is simply the plural of 'new,' meaning new things or tidings, in use since the late Middle Ages. 'Reel,' a spindle or revolving frame for winding thread or film, comes from Old English 'hrēol.' The word stitched itself together in the early 20th century, once cameras could capture the world in motion and projectors could throw it onto a wall for a paying crowd.
- theater staple
- Standalone newsreel cinemas ran 24/7 in major cities
- weekly drip
- Audiences waited days to see events unfold
- propaganda power
- Both Allies and Axis weaponized them in WWII
- slow death
- TV news killed the format by the 1960s
- famous voice
- The booming announcer style became instantly iconic
movietone news — fox newsreel distributed weekly from 1919-1975, shown in theaters before main features
pathe freres gazette — french newsreel started 1909, first to establish regular cinema news format globally
the march of time — american newsreel series 1935-1951, won academy award and set standard for investigative film journalism