* The 1952 presidential election in the U.S. is a milestone in the history of analytic journalism. CBS, working with Remington Rand Corp. and an exit polling company, was in a position to predict Eisenhower's sweeping victory in the electoral college thanks to a new device called UNIVAC. But the network's journalists doubted the accuracy of the computer's prediction. Click here to see a portion of that coverage. (QuickTime .mov file)
See also: "In '52, huge computer called Univac changed election night."  By Kevin Maney, USAToday 10/26/2004

* The UNIVAC computer was demonstrated on June 14, 1951 by Remington Rand and its first customer was the U.S. Census Bureau. It was the first commercial busines computer. http://www.historychannel.com/tdih/ram/0614.ram [Requires Real Audio plug-in]

* Perhaps the earliest example of a government using a binary mechanical system to store and analyze data was the U.S. census of 1890. Here, however, is a newsreel clip showing how the Czechs were using computers for their census by the 1930s.

* The essence of analytic journalism is finding the tools and methods of other disciplines and using them to better understand a phenomena and tell the story. This segment from the CBS show "Sunday Morning" illustrates well this transfer of method, technology and, eventually, knowledge. Click here to see the QuickTime .mov file.