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AP Was There: Covering the previous coronation in Britain

The Associated Press will muster a small army to cover King Charles III's coronation this weekend

Allen G. Breed
Thursday 04 May 2023 05:01 BST

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It might just be the coolest caption in newspaper history: ā€œAP Wirephoto via jet bomber from Londonā€

On Saturday, The Associated Press will deploy a small army of writers, photographers, radio correspondents and video journalists to cover the coronation of Britainā€™s King Charles III.

But for his motherā€™s crowning 70 years ago, the worldā€™s oldest news cooperative enlisted the help of an air force as well.

CONNECTING THE WORLD

Founded in 1846 by competing New York City newspapers looking to share the costs of covering the Mexican War, the AP used boats, barges, trains, sleighs, ponies and pigeons to get stories to its ā€œmembers.ā€ AP was an early adopter of Samuel Morseā€™s and Alfred Vail's telegraph ā€” thus the term ā€œwire service.ā€ With the telegraph, communications technology severed itself permanently from transportation methods.

ā€œInnovation is in our bloodstream ā€” and always has been,ā€ says Valerie Komor, director of APā€™s corporate archives.

Another big leap came in 1935, when ā€” after 10 years of development in collaboration with AT&T ā€” the AP launched its Wirephoto service, using a 10,000-mile network of telephone lines to distribute pictures to newspapers simultaneously with the news report. The photos were transmitted using a light bulb called an ā€œexciter lamp.ā€

The print was wrapped around a cylinder that rotated as the lamp shone its beam across the image, scanning about 1 inch of copy per minute. So, an 8 x 10 black-and-white photo took eight minutes to transmit ā€” that is, if there was no interference on the line.

That technology had changed little by 1953, as the world prepared for the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. But the AP had a few tricks up its sleeve.

Today, stories, photos and videos are beamed around the planet via a network of satellites. But this was more than four years before the Soviet Union successfully put Sputnik into orbit.

To get its photos out of London, AP was relying on the ā€œradiophoto,ā€ which used the airwaves to transmit images. But there was another hurdle.

Normal commercial radiophoto circuits of the day ran at a rate of 60 revolutions per minute; APā€™s wirephoto network operated at 100 rpm. So, for the coronation, AP leased a special circuit operating at the higher rate.

Pre-coronation tests were conducted in London. ā€œResults were reasonably good,ā€ the AP noted. But, it warned its members, atmospheric storms forecast between London and New York that week ā€œmay make radiophoto transmission difficult ā€” perhaps impossible during certain periods.ā€ The problem: Radio waves carrying a photo signal across the Atlantic didnā€™t simply follow the Earthā€™s curvature.

ā€œTo reach New York successfully they must be reflected from layers of electrified air particles 100 to 200 miles above the Earth,ā€ the wire service wrote. ā€œIt is the reflection from this `mirrorā€™ which makes possible long distance transmission of pictures by radio.ā€

During atmospheric storms, the AP said, that mirror might become clouded, ā€œlike the mirror in your bathroom after your hot shower.ā€

FLIGHT PLANS

So, as a precaution, AP arranged to have the original photos transported across the Atlantic aboard English Electric Canberra jet planes ā€” the Royal Air Forceā€™s new high-altitude bombers ā€” that were already tasked to carry television films.

ā€œThese planes will leave London at intervals during the day,ā€ the wire service told its members, ā€œwith the first jet due in Montreal around 3:30 pm, EST. Original prints will be sent directly onto APā€™s wirephoto network from a location at St. Hubertā€™s airport in Montreal.ā€

The dual plan worked, and AP prevailed over the ā€œopposition,ā€ a committee of the Associated Press Managing Editors group crowed in a postmortem of the photo coverage. The dedicated circuit was used ā€œin contrast to circuits the opposition were using (and cursing), and it was a key factor in APā€™s success.ā€

ā€œOver this 6,000-mile route from London, AP started moving a picture of Elizabeth wearing her crown only 18 minutes after it was put on her head,ā€ the report noted. ā€œBy the same method the New York Daily News received the picture of Elizabethā€™s leaving the palace, and printed it only an hour and 43 minutes after the event. The News called it "an all-time record for picture-handling.ā€

In a battle to be first on American airwaves with footage, CBS and NBC each hired ā€œsouped-upā€ P-51 Mustang fighter planes to ferry film from Canada to Boston, the AP reported. In a scheme dubbed ā€œOperation Astro,ā€ NBC even hired a Canberra being delivered to the Venezuelan air force to carry its film, though alleged fuel pump problems forced it to turn around, according to a 1988 retrospective by former network president Reuven Frank.

ā€œThe TV networks spared no expense to deliver coronation films to U.S. viewers,ā€ the APME panel wrote. ā€œBut thanks to the absence of any TV transatlantic link, U.S. afternoon papers had the picture beat.ā€

WHAT WAS WRITTEN

Despite all the hubbub about photos, AP was still primarily a word operation in 1953. And a team of writers cranked out stories that magically appeared on banks of newsroom teletype machines that clacked away at a stately 60 words per minute ā€” in all caps.

Hal Boyle wrote about then 4-year-old ā€œPRINCE CHARLIE, BRITAINā€™S FAIR-HAIRED BOY,ā€ and how the future monarch ā€œSTOLE THE PRE-CORONATION SPOTLIGHT FROM HIS REGAL MOTHER BY PLAYING A GAME OF PEEK-A-BOO WITH VAST THRONGS OUTSIDE BUCKINGHAM PALACE.ā€

ā€œYOUNG CHARLIE, WEARING A SUIT OF PALE BLUE, STEPPED TO A SECOND FLOOR WINDOW, AND DREW BACK A LACE CURTAIN,ā€ Boyle wrote. ā€œSMILING BROADLY, HE WAVED HAPPILY DOWN AT THE CHURNING THRONG, WHICH SET UP A CRY, `THERE HE IS!ā€™ā€

Boyle, who won a Pulitzer in 1944 for his war dispatches, reported that hundreds of mothers held their children high to see the bonnie prince, ā€œWHO IS ONE OF THE MOST POPULAR FIGURES IN THE ROYAL FAMILY BECAUSE, LIKE ANY NORMAL BOY, HE GETS IN HIS FAIR SHARE OF TROUBLE.ā€

Over his long years as sovereign-in-waiting, Charles earned a reputation as somewhat stiff and distant. But 70 years ago, Boyle wrote, the young princeā€™s antics ā€œHAD GIVEN A HUMAN TOUCH TO THE SHOW AND TAKEN SOME OF THE TENSION AWAY FROM THE LONG WATCH ...ā€

Relman ā€œPatā€ Morin, already the recipient of the 1951 Pulitzer Prize in International Reporting, would add a second Pulitzer five years later for his coverage of the integration battle in Little Rock, Arkansas. He wrote the APā€™s ā€œsecond night lead.ā€

ā€œIN THE MOMENT OF HER CORONATION, ELIZABETH WAS THE VERY VISION OF A QUEEN, BEAUTIFUL, REGAL, AND OUTWARDLY SERENE," he wrote.

Morin said it was a ceremony ā€œOLD TO ENGLAND BUT NEW TO TELEVISION.ā€

ā€œTHE BROADCAST BROUGHT OFFICIALLY TO A CLOSE A DAY OF DESTINY THAT HAD KEPT THE QUEEN IN THE PUBLIC EYE 11 HOURS,ā€ he wrote. ā€œIT WAS THE MOST-SEEN CORONATION IN HISTORY.ā€

That is, perhaps, until Saturday.

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