In my not-so-vast library of news clippings, interviews, books and other related matter covering a century of motion picture and television photojournalism, I also have the occasional piece of ephemera as well. Today’s example would be a 1958 Chicago Police press credential and a 1954 CBS employee ID belonging to the late Roland Koza. Both images are clickable to read the text on them.

The Chicago PD credential was issued to Roland by his brother, Frank J. Koza, who passed away recently. Interestingly, the $200 fine for producing a credential for the purpose of impersonating a journalist is still on the books in Chicago as well as “newsreels” still being considered news media.

The CBS ID was signed by an interesting person in CBS and TV news history…Chester Burger. Burger was a “visualizer” for CBS, having started in 1946 as their first TV news reporter and was the pioneer in the field of visual news reporting and storytelling via television a few years before Ed Murrow even stepped in front of  a camera. Professor Conway’s book, The Origins of Television News in America: The Visualizers of CBS in the 1940s has more about Burger and his pioneering role in the history of broadcast journalism.