Electronic Examiner c. 1981

This clip from a 1981 news broadcast from San Francisco’s KRON channel heralds the arrival of the consumption of news via home computer. The San Francisco Examiner, along with eight other US newspapers, was able to deliver the text of each daily edition via a basic computer network. David Cole, a staffer on the SFE, conveys what this breakthrough was like and, interestingly, hints at some issues that still occupy media companies today: “This is an experiment. We’re trying to figure out what it’s going to mean to us, as editors and reporters and what it means to the home user. And we’re not in it to make money, we’re probably not going to lose a lot, but we aren’t going to make much either.” (Via: Design Observer).