08-05-2025
- General
- Wall Street Journal
Hearst Metrotone News Keeps History Alive
Though few remember them today, newsreels were a fixture of daily life for Americans from the early days of movies until television news rendered them obsolete in the 1960s. Many will recall 'News on the March,' the parody of a newsreel that opens Orson Welles's 'Citizen Kane' (1941), with its bombastic narration overlaying documentary footage. Often screened in cinemas before the main attractions, these shorts were a main source of news in addition to newspapers and radio, with the added visual appeal and impact of a feature film.
Much of this footage has been lost, however. Nitrate-based film stock, which was used until the 1950s, is notoriously flammable and subject to deterioration. In 1978, a fire at the National Archives and Records Service in Suitland, Md., destroyed 12.6 million feet, or roughly 2,300 hours, of newsreel footage, and there have been other losses besides.
