American educator and broadcaster, McLuhan's key collaborator through the National Association of Educational Broadcasters (NAEB) period. Cameron and Bob cast him as McLuhan's "main buddy" of the late 1950s — the sounding board behind Project 69 (Understanding Media), the recipient of a compulsive, often 18-page correspondence, and the first to hear both "the medium is the message" and the "classroom without walls."
Across the dialogues
McLuhan's "main buddy" in the NAEB years — the sounding board behind Project 69
Skornia was McLuhan's "main buddy" through the NAEB projects — "hugely important" for the connections McLuhan needed.
"his main buddy, he always had a main buddy in these projects, was Harry Skornia."
Skornia worked as the ideal sounding board — drawing McLuhan out in a way McLuhan valued.
"He was a perfect sounding board. He was able to lead McLuhan on in a way that McLuhan deeply appreciated."
Through the NAEB, Skornia's channel financed Project 69 — the work that became Understanding Media, developed in tandem with Gutenberg Galaxy from 1958.
"When McLuhan did what he called Understanding Media in 1960, which was the publication of his Project 69. That was financed by the United States Office of Education through the NAEB."
The compulsive correspondence — letters as a way of "reaching into the future"
The name is pronounced "Skornia," not "Scornia" — confirmed with people who knew him.
"Since our last conversation, I've checked with people that knew Harry, and the pronunciation of his name was Skornia, not Scornia."
Asked the point of his enormous letters, McLuhan answered that letter-writing was a way of "reaching into the future" — finding indistinct material and drawing it into distinction.
"McLuhan's answer was something like, writing letters is a way of getting at new stuff that can be developed later. So a letter isn't something where you inform somebody what you know, what you're doing, and all that sort of stuff. You're kind of reaching into the future and finding stuff there that's a little bit indistinct, but you're putting it down on paper to help bring it into a useful distinction."
Where NAEB colleagues complained about McLuhan, sometimes violently, Skornia could work with him without friction.
"I think what McLuhan found in Scornia is somebody who was somehow able to relate to McLuhan without much friction."
The recipient of "the medium is the message" and the "classroom without walls" in 1958
In 1958 McLuhan paired "the medium is the message" with the "classroom without walls" in addressing Skornia — the wall between school and world had fallen.
"When he says the medium is the message, he says to Harry Skornia at exactly the same time: what we have to do is recognize that we also have a classroom without walls. The people are learning more outside of the classroom than inside."
Recast from correspondent to antagonist — Cameron reconstructs the NAEB compromise as the moment McLuhan's programme was cut down to fit a grant application, and Bob turns the same episode into an accusation Cameron does not endorse
Skornia's refusal is the hinge — the funding body wanted "new media" singular, and the demand that McLuhan drop the study of media as such is what forces the compromise the rest of his career works around.
"no, no, no, they'll never buy that. Forget that. That's too complicated. All they want to know about is new media."
Bob converts a professional disagreement into an assassination attempt; Cameron, who supplied the whole account, does not take it up, and the claim stands unsupported beside his own reading that the compromise merely made McLuhan ill.
"Skornia was a clever CIA guy."
Connections
McLuhan's "main buddy" through the NAEB period — a sounding board he wrote to compulsively, central to both Gutenberg Galaxy and Understanding Media.
Skornia ran the NAEB channel that financed Project 69 (Understanding Media) from 1958; the "Grammars of Media" paper was written for him.