Here's To The Magicians

Ben Blank passed away on Tuesday, February 3rd, in Teaneck, New Jersey.
He was 87 years old.
You may not know the name, but you certainly have benefitted from his gift to television. You see, back in 1957, Ben was with CBS News. We didn’t have all the “bells and whistles” back then. In fact, most evening newscasts from the networks lasted only 15 minutes. Nearly all the pictures seen on TV were on film and in some cases, several days old. The idea of beaming pictures live across the world by satellite was unheard of. For one thing, satellites didn't even exist. But all of that was about to change.
Americans awoke one morning to the shocking news that the Soviet Union had launched a satellite into space. It was called Sputnik 1. It was tiny as satellites go, but its impact was huge, especially here in the United States. The Soviet Union was our Cold War enemy. Spy scandals and espionage were the tricks of the trade. Now, Americans feared the dire consequences of being second in a race for the conquest of space. Remember, there were no pictures of the launch, no images of Sputnik circling the earth. So, as CBS began trying to figure how to tell this story, they turned to Ben Blank. He took a turntable, a globe, a length of coat hanger wire, and a golf ball and put them all together to illustrate what Sputnik was doing over our heads – this amazing little satellite, circling the globe every 90 minutes or so. It was important for people to know about that and understand that. In doing so, Ben also became the innovator of using graphics and models on TV to help illustrate the day’s news. He made it possible for Americans to understand what was going on around them.
Walter Cronkite said this of Ben Blank: “He was, indeed, a pioneer of television graphics at a time when his artistry and genius were all we had to demonstrate a complicated story.”
“Dish It To Downing” this week is dedicated to people like Ben Blank: the unsung heroes of television. I like to call them, The Magicians, for they work the magic that makes much of what we do understandable to the general public. I think a lot of people tend to simplify what goes on every night on their TV sets. I’m sort of the front man, the guy who gets to sit in front of the camera and read. As such, people make a lot of suppositions about me: that we are always up on current events and understand the most detailed concepts. While I do enjoy current events and trying to keep history in perspective, I don’t do it all myself. There is a group of people behind the scenes that work that magic every night. They make it possible to tell complicated stories in a more understandable fashion. A lot of the people that make a contribution to the evening newscast get little or no credit for doing so. That’s unfair. They are the ones who make the music play when it’s suppose to, make the pictures appear on your screen when we tell them to, and keep us from sitting there looking like a bunch of idiots. You never see their names appear on the screen because we don’t run credits anymore. Some time ago, viewers demanded more news, so we don’t roll the credits at the end of the show anymore.
The technology used in a newscast every night is truly awe-inspiring. We use full screen graphics, animations, zooming maps, and a host of other visual elements to try to help you understand the day’s news. But we couldn’t use a one of them without the creativity of these magicians. How good are they? They are so good that many times, you can’t tell the difference between what the networks are doing and what our local artists are doing. When you think about it, isn’t that the ultimate compliment to them?
So, to the makers of that magic, thank you for all that you do.


Downing Bolls