1992 Election Documentary Collection

Visit our Tour Destination: Illinois page to see the entire tour of the state’s Save America’s Treasures sites.

Bill Clinton at church in 1992.
Video still from the 1992 Election Documentary Collection,
Media Burn Independent Video Archive.

1992 Election Documentary Collection

Media Burn Independent Video Archives

Website:  Media Burn Independent Video Archive

The Treasure:  Footage of Bill Clinton, George H.W. Bush, H. Ross Perot, Hillary Clinton, Al Gore, James Carville, Rahm Emanuel, Dee Dee Myers, George Stephanopoulos, David Axelrod, Jerry Brown, Paul Tsongas, and Carol Moseley Brown in the midst of the 1992 campaigns, with everyone jockeying for positions of influence in the high stakes world of American electoral politics.

Accessibility:  These tapes must be among the most accessible of all Save America’s Treasures projects! All 120 project videotapes can be easily accessed at the Media Burn Independent Video Archive. They’re just a couple of clicks away…

Background:  In preparation for a three-part national PBS series called The 90’s, independent producers fanned out from Chicago to videotape the 1992 presidential campaign. It was a season filled with surprises. The Democratic primaries remained a toss-up until Super Tuesday when then-governor Bill Clinton finally seized the lead. Then after the conventions, the path to the presidency proved unusually complex because of the on-again, off-again candidacy of H. Ross Perot.

Rahm Emanuel during the 1992 campaign.
Video still from the Media Burn Archive.

Tom Weinberg, founder of Media Burn and an executive producer of The 90’s, was one of the cameramen who worked on the project. Years later, he recalled: “When a few dozen of us independent videomakers were shooting these tapes in 1992, we knew it was unique and important — something that could not have been possible at any other moment in history.”

The cameramen who followed the early days of the Clinton campaign received unusually close access to Clinton’s strategic team, allowing close-up behind-the-scenes glimpses of a campaign poised to make history. Their footage captures early political use of the internet and e-mail as part of Clinton’s cutting-edge strategies.

George Stephanopolous in 1992.
Video still from the Media Burn Archive.

The Media Burn Archive preserves much more than just the 1992 Election Documentary Collection. After you finish watching the 450 hours of election footage, you can move on to enjoy more than 1,000 hours of other historic video treats, all streaming free of charge. Media Burn preserves over 6,000 videotapes covering the years from 1969 to the present, celebrating Chicago’s musicians, politicians, sports legends, radio personalities, community leaders, and neighborhood festivals. Special attention is paid to Media Burn’s inspiration, Chicago legend Studs Terkel who spent his life documenting the life of the city.

Hillary Clinton during the 1992 campaign.
Video still from the Media Burn Independent Video Archive.

Notes from the Editor:  CNN became a powerhouse in 1991 with its Gulf War coverage, establishing a demand for the 24-hour news cycle. As the presidential campaign heated up, cameras were everywhere, filming everything. So what happened to all the footage?

Much of the documentary videotape has been lost due to natural deterioration. The videotapes used by news teams in the early 1990s were designed for immediate use, with little to no thought given to long-term archival preservation. The filmmakers employed in the production of The 90’s used a new Hi-8mm format that turned out to be highly susceptible to corrosion problems. The tapes began to lose detail almost immediately. As producers moved to newer formats, the playback machines that supported the older formats were neglected or discarded. Soon the old tapes were deteriorating and there were no machines to even play them on.

The Media Burn 1992 Election Documentary Collection dwarfs all other surviving collections of this pivotal period. It preserves more than 450 hours of footage from the campaigns. The only other major source of behind-the-scenes 1992 campaign footage — the video shot by documentary film producer D.A. Pennebaker for The War Room (1993) — constitutes just 35 hours of material. Taken together, these two collections preserve an extraordinary record of an important time.

Considering the extreme inaccessibility of this material at the time when the Save America’s Treasures award was announced in 2009, we are indeed lucky to be able to so easily access, study, and enjoy these films today — simply by visiting a website and streaming the videos.

Original Hi-8mm videotape from the 1992 Election Documentary Collection
in storage at Media Burn Independent Video Archive.

Other Recommended Sites:  In the summer of 2012, Chicago’s Museum of Broadcast Communications re-opened in a handsome— and very green — building. The country’s national Radio Hall of Fame is located there. The Video Databank in downtown Chicago allows free in-person viewing of its video art collection. While the Chicago Film Archives does not have facilities for public on-site access, they are working to digitize their collections in order to increase their accessibility.

Bill and Hillary Clinton celebrate his Illinois primary victory in 1992.
Video still from the Media Burn Independent Video Archive.

Tour America's History Itinerary

Friday’s (11/9) destination:  Jens Jensen Park

© 2012 Lee Price