Sam Goes to War

by Bruce Cohen

Originally published in INSIDE IMPACT Magazine, Spring 1991

Republished with permission of Impact Business Services, Inc.

With the August invasion of Kuwait by the forces of Saddam Hussein, a new chapter in America's war history was destined to be written.  Almost immediately after the takeover of Kuwait, Iraqi forces began assembling on the Saudi border.  A call for help was sent to Uncle Sam by the undermanned and undergunned Saudi's.

CBS News began gearing up for the expanded war coverage they knew would be required.  They would be getting increased wire service feeds from AP, UPI, and Reuters, reports from writers around the world, as well as thousands of feet of video tape footage for editing and subsequent broadcast.  The information would have to be managed and massaged by writers, producers, researchers and on-air personalities.

The CBS systems already in place would be unable to handle the sheer volume of data that was expected and lacked the sophisticated high-speed search capabilities required in a crisis situation.

Enter askSam.

CBS needed a system that could be on line by the January 15th deadline and it was already late December.  Senior Producers Gordon Joseloff and Stephen Jacobs of the CBS News Division, contacted a number of vendors who offered the types of systems that could do the job.  When they contacted Walt Sessions of askSam Systems of Perry Florida, they were directed to George Laszlo and his company Dialectix, Inc. of White Plains, N.Y.  According to Laszlo, "CBS needed a system that could handle vast amounts of structured (statistical databases) and unstructured (wire service stories) information and provide quick and efficient retrieval of that information.  As askSam's capabilities are virtually unlimited in these areas (the only limit is the hardware used) we were confident that we could do the job.  The only real obstacle was the time factor.  We had two weeks to get the system on-line."  As if that task was not difficult enough in the short span of time available, many of the system users were computer illiterate.

After discussing askSam's potential and ability to meet CBS requirements, Dialectix was given a contract to proceed.  The date was New Year's Day.

CBS Information Services staff led by Dan DePierro and Tom Smith, installed several interconnected Local Area Networks (LANs) serving over 100 IBM PC compatible workstations located throughout the CBS Broadcast Center in New York City including the broadcast studio used for Dan Rather's Evening News program.  A special area called the War Desk was established and manned 24 hours-a-day by writers and producers who were responsible for monitoring the war.  Once on-line, the system was required to monitor the wire services, send messages, maintain electronic mail, handle word processing to write stories, and search for and retrieve text, graphics and live video footage.

The system operates in the following manner.  Wire services send stories electronically to a CBS system called NewStar which alerts the user each time a new item is received.  The story can either be worked on at that station or sent on to someone else via electronic mail.  If the story is to be worked on immediately, it is sent to Word Perfect (the systems word processing program) with just two keystrokes and then can be edited, filed, printed, and sent back into NewStar.

Until the use of askSam, the system could store data for 12 -24 hours before it had to be purged to accept any new information. It also lacked adequate search capabilities for the kind of short deadline work that was sure to be coming.  askSam has neither of those drawbacks.

The best way to illustrate "Sam's unique abilities is through example.  Early in the crisis many comparisons were made between Saddam Hussein and Adolf Hitler.  If a writer wanted to do a piece on this comparison they need only get into a chronology database managed by askSam, type in the name Hitler, and the system will find all references made to Hitler in chronologic order.  As the writer goes through the list he / she can electronically clip out all the references he finds interesting.  When finished he merely exits askSam, goes into Word Perfect, calls up the files and all the clipped quotes will be waiting there to be edited and woven into the story.  The story can then be sent to NewStar and distributed by electronic mail.  The feature can also be filed into any or all of 'Sam's databases automatically and become immediately available to CBS employees working on programs such as 48 Hours, 60 Minutes, and The CBS Evening News.

Another example involves the files and retrieval of video images.  CBS receives a vast amount of footage from all over the world.  Before the video footage can be effectively used its contents must be viewed and described.  This is done by people called loggers, whose job it is to describe in a much detail as possible every scene on the tape.

Using a software package called Video Logic, the location of every scene on the tape is logged  The search capacity of Video Logic, however, is limited, especially if you have a large library of video tapes, which is certainly the case at CBS.  Now, all video information is transferred into askSam and is available for retrieval at all workstations.  If a producer needs footage of an Iraqi SCUD missile, inbound for Tel Aviv and being intercepted by a Patriot missile he would only have to type Patriot, SCUD, and Tel Aviv.  Sam will then identify all of the appropriate tapes and the location of each scene on the tapes.

The system has been in operation since the start of the war and has been modified and enhanced several times to meet changing needs as the events of the war unfold.  The system has had no difficulties in handling the huge volume of information flowing into it around the clock.  When Uncle Sam sent out the clarion call to arms, askSam was up to the task.

     . . . . .                         

askSam Systems

Post Office Box 1428

Perry FL 32348

Phone: 850-584-6590

Fax: 850-548-7481

Email:  info@asksam.com

http://www.asksam.com