1944 - Communications, Media

Communications, Media

CBS radio announcer Robert Trout covers the D-Day landings in Normandy. Now 34, he makes 35 broadcasts in 24 hours, remaining on the air for 7 hours and 18 minutes in one stretch to give American listeners an eye-witness account. Battle sounds recorded by Chicago-born sound engineer Marvin Camras, 28, and amplified at sites far removed from the D-Day landing sites mislead the Wehrmacht. Camras has developed wire recorders that the U.S. Army has used to train pilots (see 1950; music [Mullin], 1945).

Journalist William Allen White dies at his native Emporia, Kansas, January 29 at age 75; cartoonist George Herriman at Hollywood, Calif., April 25 at age 65; Los Angeles Times publisher Harry Chandler of a coronary thrombosis at Los Angeles September 23 at age 80, having turned over the presidency of the paper in 1941 to his son Norman, now 45, who will serve as publisher until 1960.

Al-Akhbar begins publication at Cairo. Twin publishers Aly and Mustapha Amin, 30, begin the weekly Akhbar el Yom in addition to their daily newspaper.

Agence France Presse is founded as an outgrowth of the Havas organization established in 1835. It will grow by the end of the century to have more than 2,500 customers worldwide, providing news sent by bureaus in 165 countries (in Arabic, English, German, Portuguese, and Spanish as well as French).

Le Figaro resumes publication at Paris August 23 after a 20-month suspension.

Parisien Liberé begins publication at Paris under the direction of advertising man Emilien Amauray, 33, who has started clandestine Résistance papers while serving as Vichy government director of propaganda favoring large families. The de Gaulle government has expropriated the daily Le Petit Parisien on charges of collaborating with the enemy and placed Amauray in charge of the 81-year-old paper; he has renamed it and will make it a commercial success with 22 regional editions and a daily circulation of more than 800,000.

Le Monde begins publication at Paris December 19 to succeed the prewar paper Le Temps, which had become a mouthpiece for the French steel trust, big private banks, and the foreign office. The new paper's directeur is Résistance veteran Hubert Beuve-Méry, 42, who has Gen. de Gaulle's blessings to make Le Monde an independent paper.

Seventeen magazine begins publication at New York in September. Publishing heir Walter H. Annenberg, now 36, has started the periodical for young girls (see 1939; TV Guide, 1953).