Newton N. Minow, who as President John F. Kennedy’s new F.C.C. chairman in 1961 despatched shock waves by way of an trade and touched a nerve in a nation hooked on banality and mayhem by calling American tv “a vast wasteland,” died on Saturday at his dwelling in Chicago . He was 97.
His daughter Nell Minow mentioned the trigger was a coronary heart assault.
On May 9, 1961, virtually 4 months after President Kennedy known as upon Americans to resume their dedication to freedom across the globe, Mr. Minow, a bespectacled bureaucrat who had not too long ago been put in control of the Federal Communications Commission, bought up earlier than 2,000 broadcast executives at a luncheon in Washington and invited them to observe tv for a day.
“Stay there without a book, magazine, newspaper, profit-and-loss sheet or rating book to distract you, and keep your eyes glued to that set until the station signs off,” Mr. Minow mentioned. “I can assure you that you will observe a vast wasteland.”
The viewers sat aghast as he went on:
“You will see a procession of game shows, violence, audience participation shows, formula comedies about totally unbelievable families, blood and thunder, mayhem, violence, sadism, murder, Western bad men, Western good men, private eyes, gangsters, more violence and cartoons. And endlessly, commercials — many screaming, cajoling and offending. And most of all, boredom.”
Source: www.nytimes.com