* The 1952 presidential election in the U.S. is a milestone in
the history of analytic journalism. CBS, working with Remington Rand
Corp. and an exit polling company, was in a position to predict
Eisenhower's sweeping victory in the electoral college thanks to a new
device called UNIVAC. But the network's journalists doubted the
accuracy of the computer's prediction. Click here to
see a portion of that coverage. (QuickTime .mov file)
See also: “In '52, huge computer called Univac changed election night.”  By Kevin Maney, USAToday 10/26/2004


* The UNIVAC computer was demonstrated on June 14, 1951 by
Remington Rand and its first customer was the U.S. Census Bureau. It
was the first commercial busines computer. http://www.historychannel.com/tdih/ram/0614.ram
[Requires Real
Audio plug-in]

* Perhaps the earliest example of a government using a binary
mechanical system to store and analyze data was the U.S. census of
1890. Here, however, is a newsreel
clip showing how the Czechs were using computers for their census
by the 1930s.

* The essence of analytic journalism is finding the tools and
methods of other disciplines and using them to better understand a
phenomena and tell the story. This segment from the CBS show “Sunday
Morning” illustrates well this transfer of method, technology and,
eventually, knowledge. Click here to
see the QuickTime .mov file.