National Colored Tournament, Shady Rest CC, July 1925

''Fox News'' was the original

newsreel A newsreel is a form of short documentary film, containing news stories and items of topical interest, that was prevalent between the 1910s and the mid 1970s. Typically presented in a cinema, newsreels were a source of current affairs, inform ...

established by movie mogul William Fox. It was eventually replaced by Fox's pioneering sound newsreel, ''

Fox Movietone News Movietone News is a newsreel that ran from 1928 to 1963 in the United States. Under the name British Movietone News, it also ran in the United Kingdom from 1929 to 1986, in France also produced by Fox-Europa, in Australia and New Zealand until 1970 ...

'', which began regular operations in December 1927. William Fox had great ambitions for his newsreel from the very beginning; he even managed to secure a letter from President

Woodrow Wilson Thomas Woodrow Wilson (December 28, 1856February 3, 1924) was an American politician and academic who served as the 28th president of the United States from 1913 to 1921. A member of the Democratic Party, Wilson served as the president of ...

endorsing his newsreel. At its launch in 1919, Fox had already secured a network of cameramen spanning the globe. Although the newsreel began acquiring stories in August 1919, the newsreel did not begin a regular, twice-weekly release until October 1919. From the beginnings of its operations, ''Fox News'' main domestic rivals were ''Hearst News'', ''

Pathé News Pathé News was a producer of newsreels and documentaries from 1910 to 1970 in the United Kingdom. Its founder, Charles Pathé, was a pioneer of moving pictures in the silent era. The Pathé News archive is known today as British Pathé. Its col ...

'', '' International News'' and ''Kinograms''. When Fox Films ceased production of ''Fox News'', the extensive library of unused and outtake film was folded into the ''Fox Movietone News'' library and was used internally as stock footage by Fox Films and

20th Century Fox 20th Century Studios, Inc. (previously known as 20th Century Fox) is an American film production company headquartered at the Fox Studio Lot in the Century City area of Los Angeles. As of 2019, it serves as a film production arm of Walt Dis ...

until the corporation ceased production of ''Fox Movietone News'' in 1963. As part of its gift of newsreel material to the University of South Carolina announced in 1979, 20th Century Fox donated all remaining elements from the original ''Fox News'' library. Estimated at 3 million feet of film, the original, camera‐negative

nitrate film Nitrocellulose (also known as cellulose nitrate, flash paper, flash cotton, guncotton, pyroxylin and flash string, depending on form) is a highly flammable compound formed by nitrating cellulose through exposure to a mixture of nitric acid and ...

from this newsreel is arguably the most significant film record of American life, politics, and culture in the 1920s. ''Fox News'' developed a comprehensive library system to keep track of the negative films being sent to New York from all over the world. Library story numbers were assigned to each roll of film and these numbers are still used today by the University of South Carolina to identify the films. On each "dope sheet" (i.e., the notes taken by newsreel cameramen in the field) was stamped a unique library number and this number was then written onto the tail of the film negative. ''Fox News'' story numbers run in series: 0001–9999, A0001–A9999, B0001–B9999, C0001–C9999, and D0001–D4444. The last films registered into the ''Fox News'' library date from April 1930. The original library records from ''Fox News'' for those films donated to the University of South Carolina have been converted into an online database available for research. A comprehensive listing of companies and cameramen that submitted film to Fox News is available online. This listing provides names and locations of over 700 individuals and 170 businesses or organizations.

References

External links

Moving Image Research Collections, University of South Carolina
{{DEFAULTSORT:Fox News (1919 - 1930) Newsreels Fox Film