One of the battles often fought during the early days of news gathering – huge microphones placed in the middle of shots.

Unlike say with today’s wireless lavs for example, its was kinda hard to hide the Western Electric 47a’s the sound newsreels originally started out with before technological changes shrank the equipment…

“One of the most amusing and colorful battles in the industry rages between silent and sound news cameramen. The silent boys find that the prevalence of microphones is cramping their style and are properly resentful of the fact.

Accordingly, when there is an event of importance they make every effort to prevent the mikes from interfering with their photos. In doing so, they run into plenty of jams. To protect their shots, they usually frame a lot of cussing directly into the mike, so the objectionable recording outfit will be removed. A flood of swear words makes things tough for the sound news cameramen, and helps the silent men to get the shots they want.

It always works.”

The silent cameramen were not alone at times over the microphone battle. In Charles Peden’s book Newsreel Man, he relates that the sound cameramen used to get into physical fights over mike placement with their soundmen – with crews occasionally coming back to the office with black eyes as a result of a dispute.