Newton Minnow, failed prophet of respectable communications

I've recently been listening to a lot of speeches from mostly obvious sources. I've heard Nelson Mandella's surprisingly frog-like voice after his release from prison, and JFK's almost indecipherable ranting at his party nomination speech.

But only one speech I've heard lately both inspires and criticizes. Here's an excerpt that I will be citing repeatedly:

"When television is good, nothing — not the theater, not the magazines or newspapers — nothing is better.

But when television is bad, nothing is worse. I invite you to sit down in front of your television set when your station goes on the air and stay there, for a day, without a book, without a magazine, without a newspaper, without a profit and loss sheet or a rating book to distract you. Keep your eyes glued to that set until the station signs off. I can assure you that what you will observe is a vast wasteland.

You will see a procession of game 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. True, you'll see a few things you will enjoy. But they will be very, very few. And if you think I exaggerate, I only ask you to try it."

Right, so he's saying what we all know now. Wait, why IS he saying what we all know now? He was the head of the FCC, and he failed to prevent the problems he's talking about from taking over in his time? Why do we have the problems he's speaking about in 1961, today? The networks must have won! We all know this is in fact the case, but I think the more interesting thing is the FCC in the public eye. We live side by side with proof that Minnow's lofty ideals have little bearing on our day to day life now. We live in a world where our communications are owned by umbrella corporations that little reflect on the lives of their local viewers. Instead of mass dissemination of identical ideas viewed as a bad thing, we are given one viewpoint, from a central location.

http://www.neatorama.com/2008/07/07/who-owns-what-on-television/

Arguably, the problem is communication itself. One of the smarter men to die in our generation, Douglas Adams, brings up a good point in his third party memoirs "The Salmon of Doubt". He believes (or at least he did at that moment) that mass communication is an opposing force to both physiological and psychological evolution. He thinks that small groups working in isolation are the cause for most discoveries, and I tend to agree. But I agree with one caveat.

I think both ways can function for a society.

The question you must answer sooner or later is a toughie, however: Are we as a society at the right stage in our evolution to allow mass communication to connect us all?

I think no. I think we as a society we have proven again and again that the small-group model yields the most discoveries. When we start leaving our solar system and establishing colonies, then yes, proportionally, an entire planet working together will be a small group. Until that time, though, I believe that we may actually be slowing discovery by constant dissemination. Yes more mistakes are prevented, but I'm not convinced that's a good thing.

I cite:

Manhattan project, the first particle accelerator, the first lasers, the first radios, the first airplanes, and lately, string theory. Yes, we communicate about it, and yes that's vital, but no one in their right mind would claim that educating the masses about it in its current state will advance the collective knowledge of mankind. I think science should continue functioning like series of pressure cookers until we as a society have figured out earth. I think we need to start putting moratoriums on idea sharing at a high level now, before we stagnate due to overexposure to others ideas and thoughts.

So did Newton Minnow succeed in creating a device and system that educated at a high standard? Surprisingly, yes. Discovery channel, national geographic, BBC, etc. We have what he wanted. Percentage wise education is losing, but that's not due to a failing, that's due to the changing nature of television.

Say what? It still comes out of a box, y'all!

Well lets look at television in 1961. You had local stations with local programming and local TV shows. Can anyone in Calgary name one original show produced and broadcast exclusively in Calgary? You can't because they don't exist. The model for Television has changed. Instead of a menu it is a buffet, almost as navigable and changeable as the internet. Newton Minnows speech may seem relevant to our disturbing lack of content today, but in reality, he's preaching about a system that no longer exists, and this great man's strong moral guidance and fearsome rules are left by the wayside. We can no longer apply "morals" or "quality" to television. Pandora has escaped the box.

Luckily the internet's still sane.