ABSTRACT
In the late 1950s, a political science senior visited a broadcast archive for aresearch paper assignment. His assignment related to World War II and a specific Moscow conference held late in 1943. That conference had been well covered by the CBS Radio Network and the broadcasts had all been preserved, including Secretary of State Cordell Hull’s report to the Congress at the meeting’s conclusion. The student dutifully scoured the electronic transcriptions of the live radio broadcasts. He reasoned these firsthand accounts of the conference were invaluable pieces of historical evidence. He wrote his paper conforming to the standard, traditional, research style and the assigned lengthbut received an “F.” The professor appended only a brief note of explanation-the broadcast record was, “not a valid research tool.”1
