The Information Diet, by Clay Johnson is a new book that examines media saturation, and offers some ideas on how to decrease the quantity, and improve the quality of the information we intake.
I first heard about this on "Q"– a great interview program on CBC radio. Thoughtful discussions of current events, books, music, and culture–
http://www.cbc.ca/q/
Information Diet Website–
http://www.informationdiet.com/
Article on NPR–
http://www.npr.org/books/titles/145103496/the-information-diet-a-case-for-conscious-consumption?tab=excerpt#excerpt
A review on Forbes website–
http://www.forbes.com/sites/bruceupbin/2011/12/22/the-information-diet-resolved-for-2012/
Pearls Available– Swine Welcome
...cast not your pearls before swine, lest they trample them underfoot and turn to attack you. Matthew 7:6
Tuesday, January 17, 2012
Friday, January 13, 2012
And they're off! The perversion of political discourse by TV news pandering
Ever wonder why TV news campaign coverage focuses so much on the “horse race” of elections?
They own the racetrack!
We repeatedly hear about a given candidate’s viability being determined by their ability to raise money– not by the strength of their ideas, or their records. We see coverage of day-to-day polls during the election cycle that reflect the influence of the previous days televised poll. A candidate such as Ron Paul is repeatedly left out of the pundits’ serious consideration, despite the fact that in the actual contests he is doing pretty well– especially considering the fact that he may actually be a Muppet. http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=2cILGviTOTI At the same time we are presented with hyped-up coverage of Herman Cain and his ultimate scandalous downfall, Rick Perry’s brainfarts, or Michelle Bachman’s addled ramblings. Why this focus on the basest aspects of our political process? It makes for great TV! Ranting, divisiveness, insanity, and scandal are what we like to watch. Actual examination of a candidate’s position on national issues, or a serious look at their voting records in the senate is boring! Try selling ad time on a show like that. Whether we love or hate a Bill O’Reilly or a James Carville, we continue to watch– if only to enjoy the delicious frisson of our outrage at their remarks.
It is in the television networks own interest to perpetuate the divisive tone in our public discourse, to drag out and hype electoral politics as long as they can, and to convince candidates (and voters) that they can’t possibly win without the name recognition provided by massive TV ad budgets. Projections for political ad spending in the 2012 cycle reach as high as 3.2 billion dollars– three times the amount spent in 2008. By the end of October 2011, super-pac ad spending alone had reached 5 million dollars. http://adage.com/article/campaign-trail/ad-barrage-2012-race/230588/ Even discounting the hidden agendas of the giant corporations that own television, and ignoring the revenues of regular advertising sold on news programs– numbers like this can’t help but corrupt the coverage of our political process.
An example:
Buddy Roemer– Harvard graduate, former Louisiana governor, and four-term Congressman is running for the Republican nomination. The centerpiece of his campaign is that our system has been corrupted by money, that we need serious campaign finance reform, and he will only accept individual contributions up to $100. It should come as no surprise that he’s getting zero coverage– not even being invited to appear in any of the endless “debates.” http://www.npr.org/blogs/itsallpolitics/2011/12/23/144137460/tweeting-all-the-way-buddy-roemer-continues-his-quixotic-white-house-bid
I find it frightening that an industry that has spent sixty years studying and refining the process of manipulating our opinions and desires has the largest influence on our political decision-making. Especially considering that even the most benign of their motivations is to convince us to “keep watching” in order to generate greater revenues. After all– we as a nation love tasteless watered-down beer, greasy artery-clogging fast food, unreliable gas-guzzling cars, and deadly carcinogenic cigarettes. Why should we expect to get any better than their equivalent in our elected leaders– as long as we continue to allow ourselves to be hypnotized by the pretty “lights in a box?”
They own the racetrack!
We repeatedly hear about a given candidate’s viability being determined by their ability to raise money– not by the strength of their ideas, or their records. We see coverage of day-to-day polls during the election cycle that reflect the influence of the previous days televised poll. A candidate such as Ron Paul is repeatedly left out of the pundits’ serious consideration, despite the fact that in the actual contests he is doing pretty well– especially considering the fact that he may actually be a Muppet. http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=2cILGviTOTI At the same time we are presented with hyped-up coverage of Herman Cain and his ultimate scandalous downfall, Rick Perry’s brainfarts, or Michelle Bachman’s addled ramblings. Why this focus on the basest aspects of our political process? It makes for great TV! Ranting, divisiveness, insanity, and scandal are what we like to watch. Actual examination of a candidate’s position on national issues, or a serious look at their voting records in the senate is boring! Try selling ad time on a show like that. Whether we love or hate a Bill O’Reilly or a James Carville, we continue to watch– if only to enjoy the delicious frisson of our outrage at their remarks.
It is in the television networks own interest to perpetuate the divisive tone in our public discourse, to drag out and hype electoral politics as long as they can, and to convince candidates (and voters) that they can’t possibly win without the name recognition provided by massive TV ad budgets. Projections for political ad spending in the 2012 cycle reach as high as 3.2 billion dollars– three times the amount spent in 2008. By the end of October 2011, super-pac ad spending alone had reached 5 million dollars. http://adage.com/article/campaign-trail/ad-barrage-2012-race/230588/ Even discounting the hidden agendas of the giant corporations that own television, and ignoring the revenues of regular advertising sold on news programs– numbers like this can’t help but corrupt the coverage of our political process.
An example:
Buddy Roemer– Harvard graduate, former Louisiana governor, and four-term Congressman is running for the Republican nomination. The centerpiece of his campaign is that our system has been corrupted by money, that we need serious campaign finance reform, and he will only accept individual contributions up to $100. It should come as no surprise that he’s getting zero coverage– not even being invited to appear in any of the endless “debates.” http://www.npr.org/blogs/itsallpolitics/2011/12/23/144137460/tweeting-all-the-way-buddy-roemer-continues-his-quixotic-white-house-bid
I find it frightening that an industry that has spent sixty years studying and refining the process of manipulating our opinions and desires has the largest influence on our political decision-making. Especially considering that even the most benign of their motivations is to convince us to “keep watching” in order to generate greater revenues. After all– we as a nation love tasteless watered-down beer, greasy artery-clogging fast food, unreliable gas-guzzling cars, and deadly carcinogenic cigarettes. Why should we expect to get any better than their equivalent in our elected leaders– as long as we continue to allow ourselves to be hypnotized by the pretty “lights in a box?”
Wednesday, January 11, 2012
Edward R. Murrow– on the dangers of corporate, commercial control of television– RTNDA Convention, 15OCT58
This is a favorite of mine. Murrow single-handedly invented TV news, and shortly before the end of his career, gave this scathing critique of it's weaknesses, possibilities, and future– only to be widely trounced for it. I can (and likely will) go on and on about my belief that TV has become a brainwashing tool controlled by the corporate plutonomy– but first let's let a more respected man have his say–
This just might do nobody any good. At the end of this discourse a few people
may accuse this reporter of fouling his own comfortable nest, and your organization
may be accused of having given hospitality to heretical and even dangerous thoughts.
But the elaborate structure of networks, advertising agencies and sponsors will
not be shaken or altered. It is my desire, if not my duty, to try to talk to
you journeymen with some candor about what is happening to radio and television.
I have no technical advice or counsel to offer those of you who labor in this
vineyard that produces words and pictures. You will forgive me for not telling
you that instruments with which you work are miraculous, that your responsibility
is unprecedented or that your aspirations are frequently frustrated. It is not
necessary to remind you that the fact that your voice is amplified to the degree
where it reaches from one end of the country to the other does not confer upon
you greater wisdom or understanding than you possessed when your voice reached
only from one end of the bar to the other. All of these things you know.
You should also know at the outset that, in the manner of witnesses before
Congressional committees, I appear here voluntarily-by invitation-that I am
an employee of the Columbia Broadcasting System, that I am neither an officer
nor a director of that corporation and that these remarks are of a "do-it-yourself"
nature. If what I have to say is responsible, then I alone am responsible for
the saying of it. Seeking neither approbation from my employers, nor new sponsors,
nor acclaim from the critics of radio and television, I cannot well be disappointed.
Believing that potentially the commercial system of broadcasting as practiced
in this country is the best and freest yet devised, I have decided to express
my concern about what I believe to be happening to radio and television. These
instruments have been good to me beyond my due. There exists in mind no reasonable
grounds for personal complaint. I have no feud, either with my employers, any
sponsors, or with the professional critics of radio and television. But I am
seized with an abiding fear regarding what these two instruments are doing to
our society, our culture and our heritage.
Our history will be what we make it. And if there are any historians about
fifty or a hundred years from now, and there should be preserved the kinescopes
for one week of all three networks, they will there find recorded in black and
white, or color, evidence of decadence, escapism and insulation from the realities
of the world in which we live. I invite your attention to the television schedules
of all networks between the hours of 8 and 11 p.m., Eastern Time. Here you will
find only fleeting and spasmodic reference to the fact that this nation is in
mortal danger. There are, it is true, occasional informative programs presented
in that intellectual ghetto on Sunday afternoons. But during the daily peak
viewing periods, television in the main insulates us from the realities of the
world in which we live. If this state of affairs continues, we may alter an
advertising slogan to read: LOOK NOW, PAY LATER.
For surely we shall pay for using this most powerful instrument of communication
to insulate the citizenry from the hard and demanding realities which must be
faced if we are to survive. I mean the word survive literally. If there were
to be a competition in indifference, or perhaps in insulation from reality,
then Nero and his fiddle, Chamberlain and his umbrella, could not find a place
on an early afternoon sustaining show. If Hollywood were to run out of Indians,
the program schedules would be mangled beyond all recognition. Then some courageous
soul with a small budget might be able to do a documentary telling what, in
fact, we have done--and are still doing--to the Indians in this country. But
that would be unpleasant. And we must at all costs shield the sensitive citizens
from anything that is unpleasant.
I am entirely persuaded that the American public is more reasonable, restrained
and more mature than most of our industry's program planners believe. Their
fear of controversy is not warranted by the evidence. I have reason to know,
as do many of you, that when the evidence on a controversial subject is fairly
and calmly presented, the public recognizes it for what it is--an effort to
illuminate rather than to agitate.
Several years ago, when we undertook to do a program on Egypt and Israel, well-meaning,
experienced and intelligent friends shook their heads and said, "This you
cannot do--you will be handed your head. It is an emotion-packed controversy,
and there is no room for reason in it." We did the program. Zionists, anti-Zionists,
the friends of the Middle East, Egyptian and Israeli officials said, with a
faint tone of surprise, "It was a fair count. The information was there.
We have no complaints."
Our experience was similar with two half-hour programs dealing with cigarette
smoking and lung cancer. Both the medical profession and the tobacco industry
cooperated in a rather wary fashion. But in the end of the day they were both
reasonably content. The subject of radioactive fall-out and the banning of nuclear
tests was, and is, highly controversial. But according to what little evidence
there is, viewers were prepared to listen to both sides with reason and restraint.
This is not said to claim any special or unusual competence in the presentation
of controversial subjects, but rather to indicate that timidity in these areas
is not warranted by the evidence.
Recently, network spokesmen have been disposed to complain that the professional
critics of television have been "rather beastly." There have been
hints that somehow competition for the advertising dollar has caused the critics
of print to gang up on television and radio. This reporter has no desire to
defend the critics. They have space in which to do that on their own behalf.
But it remains a fact that the newspapers and magazines are the only instruments
of mass communication which remain free from sustained and regular critical
comment. If the network spokesmen are so anguished about what appears in print,
let them come forth and engage in a little sustained and regular comment regarding
newspapers and magazines. It is an ancient and sad fact that most people in
network television, and radio, have an exaggerated regard for what appears in
print. And there have been cases where executives have refused to make even
private comment or on a program for which they were responsible until they heard'd
the reviews in print. This is hardly an exhibition confidence.
The oldest excuse of the networks for their timidity is their youth. Their
spokesmen say, "We are young; we have not developed the traditions nor
acquired the experience of the older media." If they but knew it, they
are building those traditions, creating those precedents everyday. Each time
they yield to a voice from Washington or any political pressure, each time they
eliminate something that might offend some section of the community, they are
creating their own body of precedent and tradition. They are, in fact, not content
to be "half safe."
Nowhere is this better illustrated than by the fact that the chairman of the
Federal Communications Commission publicly prods broadcasters to engage in their
legal right to editorialize. Of course, to undertake an editorial policy, overt
and clearly labeled, and obviously unsponsored, requires a station or a network
to be responsible. Most stations today probably do not have the manpower to
assume this responsibility, but the manpower could be recruited. Editorials
would not be profitable; if they had a cutting edge, they might even offend.
It is much easier, much less troublesome, to use the money-making machine of
television and radio merely as a conduit through which to channel anything that
is not libelous, obscene or defamatory. In that way one has the illusion of
power without responsibility.
So far as radio--that most satisfying and rewarding instrument--is concerned,
the diagnosis of its difficulties is rather easy. And obviously I speak only
of news and information. In order to progress, it need only go backward. To
the time when singing commercials were not allowed on news reports, when there
was no middle commercial in a 15-minute news report, when radio was rather proud,
alert and fast. I recently asked a network official, "Why this great rash
of five-minute news reports (including three commercials) on weekends?"
He replied, "Because that seems to be the only thing we can sell."
In this kind of complex and confusing world, you can't tell very much about
the why of the news in broadcasts where only three minutes is available for
news. The only man who could do that was Elmer Davis, and his kind aren't about
any more. If radio news is to be regarded as a commodity, only acceptable when
saleable, then I don't care what you call it--I say it isn't news.
My memory also goes back to the time when the fear of a slight reduction in
business did not result in an immediate cutback in bodies in the news and public
affairs department, at a time when network profits had just reached an all-time
high. We would all agree, I think, that whether on a station or a network, the
stapling machine is a poor substitute for a newsroom typewriter.
One of the minor tragedies of television news and information is that the networks
will not even defend their vital interests. When my employer, CBS, through a
combination of enterprise and good luck, did an interview with Nikita Khrushchev,
the President uttered a few ill-chosen, uninformed words on the subject, and
the network practically apologized. This produced a rarity. Many newspapers
defended the CBS right to produce the program and commended it for initiative.
But the other networks remained silent.
Likewise, when John Foster Dulles, by personal decree, banned American journalists
from going to Communist China, and subsequently offered contradictory explanations,
for his fiat the networks entered only a mild protest. Then they apparently
forgot the unpleasantness. Can it be that this national industry is content
to serve the public interest only with the trickle of news that comes out of
Hong Kong, to leave its viewers in ignorance of the cataclysmic changes that
are occurring in a nation of six hundred million people? I have no illusions
about the difficulties reporting from a dictatorship, but our British and French
allies have been better served--in their public interest--with some very useful
information from their reporters in Communist China.
One of the basic troubles with radio and television news is that both instruments
have grown up as an incompatible combination of show business, advertising and
news. Each of the three is a rather bizarre and demanding profession. And when
you get all three under one roof, the dust never settles. The top management
of the networks with a few notable exceptions, has been trained in advertising,
research, sales or show business. But by the nature of the coporate structure,
they also make the final and crucial decisions having to do with news and public
affairs. Frequently they have neither the time nor the competence to do this.
It is not easy for the same small group of men to decide whether to buy a new
station for millions of dollars, build a new building, alter the rate card,
buy a new Western, sell a soap opera, decide what defensive line to take in
connection with the latest Congressional inquiry, how much money to spend on
promoting a new program, what additions or deletions should be made in the existing
covey or clutch of vice-presidents, and at the same time-- frequently on the
same long day--to give mature, thoughtful consideration to the manifold problems
that confront those who are charged with the responsibility for news and public
affairs.
Sometimes there is a clash between the public interest and the corporate interest.
A telephone call or a letter from the proper quarter in Washington is treated
rather more seriously than a communication from an irate but not politically
potent viewer. It is tempting enough to give away a little air time for frequently
irresponsible and unwarranted utterances in an effort to temper the wind of
criticism.
Upon occasion, economics and editorial judgment are in conflict. And there
is no law which says that dollars will be defeated by duty. Not so long ago
the President of the United States delivered a television address to the nation.
He was discoursing on the possibility or probability of war between this nation
and the Soviet Union and Communist China--a reasonably compelling subject. Two
networks CBS and NBC, delayed that broadcast for an hour and fifteen minutes.
If this decision was dictated by anything other than financial reasons, the
networks didn't deign to explain those reasons. That hour-and-fifteen-minute
delay, by the way, is about twice the time required for an ICBM to travel from
the Soviet Union to major targets in the United States. It is difficult to believe
that this decision was made by men who love, respect and understand news.
So far, I have been dealing largely with the deficit side of the ledger, and
the items could be expanded. But I have said, and I believe, that potentially
we have in this country a free enterprise system of radio and television which
is superior to any other. But to achieve its promise, it must be both free and
enterprising. There is no suggestion here that networks or individual stations
should operate as philanthropies. But I can find nothing in the Bill of Rights
or the Communications Act which says that they must increase their net profits
each year, lest the Republic collapse. I do not suggest that news and information
should be subsidized by foundations or private subscriptions. I am aware that
the networks have expended, and are expending, very considerable sums of money
on public affairs programs from which they cannot hope to receive any financial
reward. I have had the privilege at CBS of presiding over a considerable number
of such programs. I testify, and am able to stand here and say, that I have
never had a program turned down by my superiors because of the money it would
cost.
But we all know that you cannot reach the potential maximum audience in marginal
time with a sustaining program. This is so because so many stations on the network--any
network--will decline to carry it. Every licensee who applies for a grant to
operate in the public interest, convenience and necessity makes certain promises
as to what he will do in terms of program content. Many recipients of licenses
have, in blunt language, welshed on those promises. The money-making machine
somehow blunts their memories. The only remedy for this is closer inspection
and punitive action by the F.C.C. But in the view of many this would come perilously
close to supervision of program content by a federal agency.
So it seems that we cannot rely on philanthropic support or foundation subsidies;
we cannot follow the "sustaining route"--the networks cannot pay all
the freight--and the F.C.C. cannot or will not discipline those who abuse the
facilities that belong to the public. What, then, is the answer? Do we merely
stay in our comfortable nests, concluding that the obligation of these instruments
has been discharged when we work at the job of informing the public for a minimum
of time? Or do we believe that the preservation of the Republic is a seven-day-a-week
job, demanding more awareness, better skills and more perseverance than we have
yet contemplated.
I am frightened by the imbalance, the constant striving to reach the largest
possible audience for everything; by the absence of a sustained study of the
state of the nation. Heywood Broun once said, "No body politic is healthy
until it begins to itch." I would like television to produce some itching
pills rather than this endless outpouring of tranquilizers. It can be done.
Maybe it won't be, but it could. Let us not shoot the wrong piano player. Do
not be deluded into believing that the titular heads of the networks control
what appears on their networks. They all have better taste. All are responsible
to stockholders, and in my experience all are honorable men. But they must schedule
what they can sell in the public market.
And this brings us to the nub of the question. In one sense it rather revolves
around the phrase heard frequently along Madison Avenue: The Corporate Image.
I am not precisely sure what this phrase means, but I would imagine that it
reflects a desire on the part of the corporations who pay the advertising bills
to have the public image, or believe that they are not merely bodies with no
souls, panting in pursuit of elusive dollars. They would like us to believe
that they can distinguish between the public good and the private or corporate
gain. So the question is this: Are the big corporations who pay the freight
for radio and television programs wise to use that time exclusively for the
sale of goods and services? Is it in their own interest and that of the stockholders
so to do? The sponsor of an hour's television program is not buying merely the
six minutes devoted to commercial message. He is determining, within broad limits,
the sum total of the impact of the entire hour. If he always, invariably, reaches
for the largest possible audience, then this process of insulation, of escape
from reality, will continue to be massively financed, and its apologist will
continue to make winsome speeches about giving the public what it wants, or
"letting the public decide."
I refuse to believe that the presidents and chairmen of the boards of these
big corporations want their corporate image to consist exclusively of a solemn
voice in an echo chamber, or a pretty girl opening the door of a refrigerator,
or a horse that talks. They want something better, and on occasion some of them
have demonstrated it. But most of the men whose legal and moral responsibility
it is to spend the stockholders' money for advertising are removed from the
realities of the mass media by five, six, or a dozen contraceptive layers of
vice-presidents, public relations counsel and advertising agencies. Their business
is to sell goods, and the competition is pretty tough.
But this nation is now in competition with malignant forces of evil who are
using every instrument at their command to empty the minds of their subjects
and fill those minds with slogans, determination and faith in the future. If
we go on as we are, we are protecting the mind of the American public from any
real contact with the menacing world that squeezes in upon us. We are engaged
in a great experiment to discover whether a free public opinion can devise and
direct methods of managing the affairs of the nation. We may fail. But we are
handicapping ourselves needlessly.
Let us have a little competition. Not only in selling soap, cigarettes and
automobiles, but in informing a troubled, apprehensive but receptive public.
Why should not each of the 20 or 30 big corporations which dominate radio and
television decide that they will give up one or two of their regularly scheduled
programs each year, turn the time over to the networks and say in effect: "This
is a tiny tithe, just a little bit of our profits. On this particular night
we aren't going to try to sell cigarettes or automobiles; this is merely a gesture
to indicate our belief in the importance of ideas." The networks should,
and I think would, pay for the cost of producing the program. The advertiser,
the sponsor, would get name credit but would have nothing to do with the content
of the program. Would this blemish the corporate image? Would the stockholders
object? I think not. For if the premise upon which our pluralistic society rests,
which as I understand it is that if the people are given sufficient undiluted
information, they will then somehow, even after long, sober second thoughts,
reach the right decision--if that premise is wrong, then not only the corporate
image but the corporations are done for.
There used to be an old phrase in this country, employed when someone talked
too much. It was: "Go hire a hall." Under this proposal the sponsor
would have hired the hall; he has bought the time; the local station operator,
no matter how indifferent, is going to carry the program-he has to. Then it's
up to the networks to fill the hall. I am not here talking about editorializing
but about straightaway exposition as direct, unadorned and impartial as fallable
human beings can make it. Just once in a while let us exalt the importance of
ideas and information. Let us dream to the extent of saying that on a given
Sunday night the time normally occupied by Ed Sullivan is given over to a clinical
survey of the state of American education, and a week or two later the time
normally used by Steve Allen is devoted to a thoroughgoing study of American
policy in the Middle East. Would the corporate image of their respective sponsors
be damaged? Would the stockholders rise up in their wrath and complain? Would
anything happen other than that a few million people would have received a little
illumination on subjects that may well determine the future of this country,
and therefore the future of the corporations? This method would also provide
real competition between the networks as to which could outdo the others in
the palatable presentation of information. It would provide an outlet for the
young men of skill, and there are some even of dedication, who would like to
do something other than devise methods of insulating while selling.
There may be other and simpler methods of utilizing these instruments of radio
and television in the interests of a free society. But I know of none that could
be so easily accomplished inside the framework of the existing commercial system.
I don't know how you would measure the success or failure of a given program.
And it would be hard to prove the magnitude of the benefit accruing to the corporation
which gave up one night of a variety or quiz show in order that the network
might marshal its skills to do a thorough-going job on the present status of
NATO, or plans for controlling nuclear tests. But I would reckon that the president,
and indeed the majority of shareholders of the corporation who sponsored such
a venture, would feel just a little bit better about the corporation and the
country.
It may be that the present system, with no modifications and no experiments,
can survive. Perhaps the money-making machine has some kind of built-in perpetual
motion, but I do not think so. To a very considerable extent the media of mass
communications in a given country reflect the political, economic and social
climate in which they flourish. That is the reason ours differ from the British
and French, or the Russian and Chinese. We are currently wealthy, fat, comfortable
and complacent. We have currently a built-in allergy to unpleasant or disturbing
information. Our mass media reflect this. But unless we get up off our fat surpluses
and recognize that television in the main is being used to distract, delude,
amuse and insulate us, then television and those who finance it, those who look
at it and those who work at it, may see a totally different picture too late.
I do not advocate that we turn television into a 27-inch wailing wall, where
longhairs constantly moan about the state of our culture and our defense. But
I would just like to see it reflect occasionally the hard, unyielding realities
of the world in which we live. I would like to see it done inside the existing
framework, and I would like to see the doing of it redound to the credit of
those who finance and program it. Measure the results by Nielsen, Trendex or
Silex-it doesn't matter. The main thing is to try. The responsibility can be
easily placed, in spite of all the mouthings about giving the public what it
wants. It rests on big business, and on big television, and it rests at the
top. Responsibility is not something that can be assigned or delegated. And
it promises its own reward: good business and good television.
Perhaps no one will do anything about it. I have ventured to outline it against
a background of criticism that may have been too harsh only because I could
think of nothing better. Someone once said--I think it was Max Eastman--that
"that publisher serves his advertiser best who best serves his readers."
I cannot believe that radio and television, or the corporation that finance
the programs, are serving well or truly their viewers or listeners, or themselves.
I began by saying that our history will be what we make it. If we go on as
we are, then history will take its revenge, and retribution will not limp in
catching up with us.
We are to a large extent an imitative society. If one or two or three corporations
would undertake to devote just a small traction of their advertising appropriation
along the lines that I have suggested, the procedure would grow by contagion;
the economic burden would be bearable, and there might ensue a most exciting
adventure--exposure to ideas and the bringing of reality into the homes of the
nation.
To those who say people wouldn't look; they wouldn't be interested; they're
too complacent, indifferent and insulated, I can only reply: There is, in one
reporter's opinion, considerable evidence against that contention. But even
if they are right, what have they got to lose? Because if they are right, and
this instrument is good for nothing but to entertain, amuse and insulate, then
the tube is flickering now and we will soon see that the whole struggle is lost.
This instrument can teach, it can illuminate; yes, and it can even inspire.
But it can do so only to the extent that humans are determined to use it to
those ends. Otherwise it is merely wires and lights in a box. There is a great
and perhaps decisive battle to be fought against ignorance, intolerance and
indifference. This weapon of television could be useful.
Stonewall Jackson, who knew something about the use of weapons, is reported
to have said, "When war comes, you must draw the sword and throw away the
scabbard." The trouble with television is that it is rusting in the scabbard
during a battle for survival.
I highly recommend the movie, Good Night, And Good Luck,– which is bookended by a condensed version of this speech.
Edward R. Murrow "Wires and Lights In a Box" Remembered
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h8QR_FERgvs&feature=relatedMurrow Speech From Good Night, and Good Luck
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1cfwsfGqgPMWelcome!
I’m constantly struck by the capability of we humans to ignore sage advice– to our peril.
In the coming weeks, I hope to post some examples, in my opinion– of bold, brave, and often unpopular ideas, advice, and warnings from noted thinkers and leaders of this nation that have been greeted with skepticism, condemnation, and often– ridicule. It is my hope that with hindsight, we might realize how prescient many of these people were, and if it’s not already too late– perhaps embrace these ideas today and act upon them accordingly. Eventually, I would like to create an environment, or forum where– with a (hopefully) broadened perspective, we can look at some of the currently unpopular, and marginalized ideas from a more open-minded viewpoint, and initiate the necessary changes now, rather than later.
Of course, the choice of these examples will be highly subjective. I will certainly be disagreed with and criticized for the content I select, but the real beauty of this premise is that if you denigrate and ridicule me and my opinions, you are by definition– swine.
In the coming weeks, I hope to post some examples, in my opinion– of bold, brave, and often unpopular ideas, advice, and warnings from noted thinkers and leaders of this nation that have been greeted with skepticism, condemnation, and often– ridicule. It is my hope that with hindsight, we might realize how prescient many of these people were, and if it’s not already too late– perhaps embrace these ideas today and act upon them accordingly. Eventually, I would like to create an environment, or forum where– with a (hopefully) broadened perspective, we can look at some of the currently unpopular, and marginalized ideas from a more open-minded viewpoint, and initiate the necessary changes now, rather than later.
Of course, the choice of these examples will be highly subjective. I will certainly be disagreed with and criticized for the content I select, but the real beauty of this premise is that if you denigrate and ridicule me and my opinions, you are by definition– swine.
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