final credits - joseph waksberg
When the business of telephone surveying to gather public opinion was fairly young, most pollsters used telephone books to reach their targets.
Joseph Waksberg realised that a segment of the population wasn't being reached, specifcally those with unlisted numbers. He developed what became to be known as the Mitofsky-Waksberg random digit dialer method in 1978.
Waksberg and Warren Mitofsky also developed the first Computer-Aided Telephone Interview (CATI) system which allowed telephone pollsters to directly enter data for immediate results.
Waksberg joined the U.S. Census Bureau in 1940, and stayed there for 33 years. He then joined Westat, a statistical research firm, and from 1967 to 1997 he served as a consultant on election night predictions for CBS News. His work has served to interrupt dinners and family gatherings for over thirty years.
Joseph Waksberg died January 10th, 2006 at the age of 90.