David Sarnoff And The Titanic Myth

This week I learned that a history story I have told many times over a couple of decades is untrue! As I prepared a presentation on NBC’s history, I was preparing to retell a famous story. David Sarnoff, the man considered the father of NBC, was often credited as a hero during the Titanic sinking. 

David Sarnoff And The Titanic Myth

The legend is that the plucky young immigrant Sarnoff, while doing a demonstration of wireless radiotelegraphy on the rooftop of Wanamaker’s department store in New York City, heard the distress call of the Titanic and stayed at his station for 72 hours, helping coordinate the rescue and relaying the names of the survivors.

It’s a fantastic story that I have seen repeated in many very reputable publications. I found it in biographies, in Forbes magazine, the Washington Post & The New York Times obituary, which wrote:

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“His real first step on the rise to fame and considerable fortune was taken the night of April 14, 1912, the night the Titanic crashed into an iceberg in the North Atlantic and sank.

Mr. Sarnoff had the monotonous job of manager of an experimental wireless station installed by John Wanamaker on the roof of his department store at Ninth Street and Broadway. That April night, the dullness was broken in staccato dots and dashes by this message:

S.S. TITANIC RAN INTO ICEBERG. SINKING FAST.

The young telegrapher quickly notified the authorities and the press, and for the next 72 hours, he sat constantly before his equipment, straining to make out the dots and dashes coming from the Carpathia and other rescue ships. In those days of weak signals, primitive circuits, and howling atmospheric interference, it was immensely difficult to receive messages accurately. President William Howard Taft ordered all wireless stations on the Eastern Seaboard except Mr. Sarnoff’s shut down to facilitate receipt of messages.”

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It’s a great story, right? There is only a problem with David Sarnoff and the Titanic Myth. The problem is that it isn’t true! And I didn’t realize that until this week. One of the differences between real historians and conspiracy interests is that historians change their minds when discovering new evidence. It turns out that the reliable sources I had used depended on for the information were wrong!

The truth is that David Sarnoff made up and then embellished the story in 1923, some eleven years after the 1912 tragedy. The evidence that the story of David Sarnoff And The Titanic is false is overwhelming.

For one thing, Wanamaker’s department store wasn’t even open the day the Titanic sank – it would have been a Sunday evening in New York City.

Another powerful piece of evidence is the realization that no contemporary newspaper – especially not any in New York City – made any mention of this supposedly glorious and heroic action by the tale-spinning David Sarnoff. Had the story been confirmed, the NYC press would have lionized Sarnoff! The report did not appear in print until Sarnoff told it to a writer a decade later.

 What appears to have happened is that David Sarnoff, like most of New York, heard about the sinking from newsboys on the street selling the latest additions of the local newspapers. Sarnoff then rushed to his station at Wanamaker’s and did, indeed, oversee a crew of telegraphers for the next three days. Sarnoff and his team published the names of the survivors of the Titanic tragedy.

Facts matter. The author of the Washington Post obituary of Sarnoff repeated the myth and later admitted to his mistake. I respect him for that.

Let my mistake remind you to check your facts before repeating a story you see on social media. Or, in my case, a story I’ve read in major publications!