Talk:David Sarnoff
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[edit] Titanic story
The current revision uses an archival article in the links section of the Sources to show that Sarnoff was engaged both at the Wanamaker and then the Seagate station. Focusing on the irrelevancy of his self-promotion rather than what he actually did is to miss the point of the man's life. It's a bit like harping at Jimmy Wales's dabbling in internet porn early in his career rather than what he's done to make this resource work as well as it has. Judson 01:11, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
According to David E. Fisher in "Tube", the Titanic story is not correct. pg. 110-111, "But it never happened. The Titanic sank on a Sunday and Wanamaker's was closed on that day.... The first of survivors came not from Wanamaker's but from the Marconi station at Cape Race..." The book continues to say that Sarnoff was one of the operators who picked up early accounts, but that the Wanamaker's station was closed down by the Marconi company and only four stations were active handling Titanic-related traffic.--Wtshymanski 01:17, 12 May 2005 (UTC)
David E. Fisher and Marshall J. Fisher, Tube, the Invention of Television Counterpoint, Washington D.C. USA, (1996) ISBN 1887178171
[edit] Incomplete biography
This article is woefully incomplete in its description of Sarnoff's business practices as he built a media monopoly that would make today's companies blush. There should be mention of the ruthless legal pursuits, repressions, and exploitations of novel media technologies, and the activites that led to the death of Armstrong.
I agree with this totally. The Sarnoff bio should include a section on his use of the legal process to wear down rivals who bested RCA in developing technology - particularly Philo T. Farnsworth and Edwin H. Armstrong. The section on television is written in a particularly slanted way, only mentioning Farnsworth (the man who certainly had the largest role in actually inventing electronic television) in the second paragraph, mentioning that Farnsworth "managed" to secure patents in 1930, notably after the 1928 meeting between Zworykin and Sarnoff. This seems a particularly slanted chronology, since it fails to mention the work that Farnsworth had done long before 1928. Rickterp 04:41, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Sarnoff: hype or truth
There are an amazing number of people ready to talk about Sarnoff the genius, Sarnoff the business man, etc. The IEEE link positively gushes about Sarnoff.
The problem is, none of it was true. Sarnoff had a habit of both lying, and taking credit for other peoples accomplishments. Sarnoff lied about being "one of the first to hear the Titanic", and repeated that story to climb the ranks in management. Sarnoff stole technology from Farnsworth, Armstrong and others.
The true picture of Sarnoff is the Bill Gates of his day,
[Not true!!! Bill Gates is much nicer and only takes credit for inventing Microsoft and seeing Windows thru its teething pains, which IBM so famously failed to do, even given repeated opportunities. normxxx 19:04, 5 January 2006 (UTC)]
taking credit for what his underlings did, stealing technology from others confident that he could prevail with RCA's bank account in court, and using his power at RCA to build up an inaccurate picture of his own personal history.
The facts are out there. Wikipedia should be printing the facts about Sarnoff, not acting as yet another PR outlet for him.
My 2 cents.--Samiam95124 21:05, 18 October 2005 (UTC)
True enough; but as Leo durocher, manager of the N.Y. Giant Baseball team, was so famously reputed to have said, "Nice guys finish last!" normxxx 19:04, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
[edit] First President to Appear on TV: Herbert Hoover
Franklin D. Roosevelt was the first president to be shown on TV (at the 1939 New York World's Fair).
This is totally disingenuous and misleading! "On April 7, 1927, a group of newspaper reporters and dignitaries gathered at the AT&T Bell Telephone Laboratories auditorium in New York City to see the first American demonstration of something new: television. Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover provided the “entertainment,” as his live picture and voice were transmitted over telephone lines from Washington, D.C., to New York." ... " Herbert Ives, the AT&T researcher who led the television project, followed that triumph with color television in 1929 and two-way interactive television in 1930, using video telephone booths connecting the AT&T and Bell Labs headquarters buildings in New York." See http://www.att.com/history/television/ normxxx 19:04, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
You are correct about Herbert Hoover, who appeared in a CLOSED CIRCUIT, WIRED transmission in 1927. However, Hoover was not President at the time, and the A T & T offering was a crude, early system which was not fully electronic. When Roosevelt appeared on television from the 1939 World's Fair, the transmission was in the modern "all-electronic" system, the program was actually BROADCAST (key point) on the air over NBC's New York televison station W2XBS (now WNBC) transmitting from the top of the Empire State Building and was seen by an estimated 1,000 people over roughly 200 sets, many of which were off-site throughout the New York metro area. Peter Goldmark of CBS describes (in his book) watching the broadcast on his home set. Note: There is no doubt that Sarnoff carfully crafted his public image in a mixture of half-truths and folklore, and his ruthless business behavior regarding Philo Farnsworth (more responsible for the invention of TV than anyone at RCA), Edwin Armstrong the inventor of FM (an old friend who Sarnoff gyped out of patent payments and used his poltical connections in Washington to try to kill FM) and others reveal a highly flawed man. Credit where credit is due, commercial television might not have happened until much later without Sarnoff's bankroll and ballyhoo, but he was more P.T. Barnham than anything else in the overall history of television in America. (user DS1951).
[edit] Neutral Point of View
I've long wondered about this article and whether it has a neutral point of view, particularly surrounding the invention of television. This article, in my opinion, has tended to present a chronology of the invention of television that is close to Sarnoff's view of that history and largely ignores the alternative view of Philo Farnsworth. I've just made a couple small edits to the RCA 1919-1956 text, changing the line about Farnsworth having "managed to secure" patents to the neutral "had been granted" and inserting language about legal battles with Farnsworth being part of the invention of television --- these legal battles are part of the historic record and should be mentioned in this section. I'm not sure these edits go far enough to establish a NPOV, but this seems like a modest step in this direction.
Should there be more about Edwin Armstrong here as well? How about a Criticism section like Thomas Edison? I'm curious to see first how my edits on the invention of television are received. Rickterp 14:59, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
