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Newton N. Minow, who as President John F. Kennedy’s new F.C.C. chairman in 1961 despatched shock waves by an trade and touched a nerve in a nation hooked on banality and mayhem by calling American tv “an enormous 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 Could 9, 1961, nearly 4 months after President Kennedy referred to as upon Individuals to resume their dedication to freedom across the globe, Mr. Minow, a bespectacled bureaucrat who had not too long ago been put answerable for the Federal Communications Fee, received up earlier than 2,000 broadcast executives at a luncheon in Washington and invited them to observe tv for a day.
“Keep there and not using a e book, journal, newspaper, profit-and-loss sheet or ranking e book to distract you, and maintain your eyes glued to that set till the station indicators off,” Mr. Minow mentioned. “I can guarantee you that you’ll observe an enormous wasteland.”
The viewers sat aghast as he went on:
“You will note a procession of sport exhibits, violence, viewers participation exhibits, method comedies about completely unbelievable households, blood and thunder, mayhem, violence, sadism, homicide, Western dangerous males, Western good males, personal eyes, gangsters, extra violence and cartoons. And endlessly, commercials — many screaming, cajoling and offending. And most of all, boredom.”
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