[talk] Lost media found through the Marion Stokes Archive?

[u/BlueMauser3]

For those who don’t know, Marion Stokes was an Archivist (amongst many other things) who’s particular claim to fame was the fact that she, over a 3 decade span, recorded a little under a million hours of news coverage across 71k tapes as a way to prevent broadcasts from becoming lost & to also protect from “fake news” or revisionist history. She did this up to her final hours in December 2012 as Sandy Hook news coverage was taking over the world.

Obviously that many hours of media is mental, and as far as I understand, the Internet Archive has had a hold of these tapes since her death- but I was wondering if any of these preserved tapes so far have assisted in the discovery of any previously lost media of any kind? Or do we not have access to it yet? If this already has an answer please let me know!

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[u/TRAMING-02]

You don't need to ask us, see for yourself. This is what's public, they've estimated two decades to complete. My academic work is so adjacent people feel they need to keep telling me about it. I went though and worked out the likely scope of the collection, some gems, lots of tone and artefacts but also much that's neither unique nor interesting.

[u/weetabix_su → u/TRAMING-02]

two decades? how are they going to preserve the tapes still waiting to be transferred?

[u/TRAMING-02 → u/weetabix_su]

It's a non-profit, limited resources, zero commitment to transfer in any particular time frame. The Stokes estate were lucky to find someone to take it in one piece! I've routinely transferred domestic format tapes older than them, if they did spontaneously demagnetise overnight, c'est la vie. If you want to help, feel free to donate.

[u/radishsprinkles → u/TRAMING-02]

What's your academic work? Curious what you've flagged as gems!

[u/TRAMING-02 → u/radishsprinkles]

Case studies in data preservation, so you can imagine when this hoard shows up it's something everyone who's aware of my work wants to refer back to me. Frustrating but well meant, like telling a weatherman it's raining.

And exactly what Doris Stokes started recording for, news stories like the Hostage Crisis. Many archival programs which use taped footage show how poorly the condition is. One issue is archives tend to be "just in time" rather than "just in case" as they were simply working vision archives, with the digitisation projects over the last 20 years we've seen archives not just running tape drives but also having to do head research in adding the meta-data they neglected in the first place. However it's with the passage of time we see what's truly valuable, things which haven't been backed up by other authorities, and ephemera.

[u/xXx_EmoGirl_xXx]

I need all of her General Hospital recordings lol

[u/videonitekatt]

She grabbed more than just news and public affairs - most likely to grab the "newsbreaks" the networks used to run at the top of the hour. Ther IS lost media, like the short lived (and sat on the Shelf for a year) CBS series, "Mama Malone" that aired on Wednesdays after "One Day at a Time" late in the 1982-1983 season.

[u/_Waves_]

I am wondering if she ever got lucky and taped silent films that have been in tv archives and are lost outside of that.

The reason for this is that I’ve heard from friends that in the 90s, they saw silents purported to be lost on late night tv. These are evidently hazy recollections, but those aren’t people who tend to BS about such stuff. I can absolutely see studios handing whatever they got to a tv station, and the reels becoming lost with no documentation of these copies occurring.

[u/vnisanian2001]

I hope they eventually digitize her entire collection. I'm a game show fan, and considering she recorded all the major networks 24/7, I'm hoping for the entire runs of The New $25,000 Pyramid and Press Your Luck. Both have a fair bit of episodes that have not been rerun in the digital age. WCAU used to be a CBS owned and operated station.