4) Cold Reaction by Newspapers toward Big Invention
Tiny News Report (New York Times, Enlargeable)
Nowadays, transistor is valued as "the greatest technical
innovation after the world warⅡ" or even "the biggest invention
in the 20th century," but the reaction of journalism was very cold at
the time of invention.
The New York Times, a major US paper, reported the invention of transistor
on July 1, 1948 on the next day after the official announcement. The news
story, though, was in only less than 40 lines without even a headline, and
was beside a radio column towards the last pages, actually on page 46, as
shown in the photograph. And also, the content was simply introducing as,
"This device will open some applications in the field of radio communication,
for which vacuum tubes are used today."
The Japanese newspapers were even worse. According to "Semiconductor
Story" written by Naomichi Nitta (not for sale), no article on transistor
invention could be found in his detailed survey of The Asahi Shinbun from
1948 to 1949. After all, the first article which hit the computer search by
the key word of semiconductor was the report of "Transistor, Hope for
Export" on May 4 in 1953. It was probably on a science page, and the
description went as, "vacuum tube not in vacuum," and "success
in extraction of germanium from wasted fluid of coal gas."
It seems that this tiny stone did not draw attention of reporters in those
days still under the ember of the war.