Lend Me Your Ears: Great Speeches in History

by Unknown

  Add that even the news the reader wants in most cities, especially the smaller cities throughout the United States, is primarily local news. He remains, even as you and I, more interested in the news of his neighbors, his community, and his city than he is in the news out of Washington, Paris, or Rome.

  Can we quarrel with this? We cannot. The Declaration of Independence itself set the pattern of the American way, and with it American reading habits. Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness were to be man’s prime and legitimate goals.

  Perhaps the history of our country would have been better—and happier—if “the pursuit of truth, information, and enlightenment” had been his third great goal. But that was not the way our founding fathers saw things. And that is not the way the American public sees them now.

  The fact is that while “man” is a rational animal, all men and all women are not preeminently rational, logical, and thoughtful in their approach to life. They do not thirst, above all, for knowledge and information about the great domestic and international issues, even though these issues may profoundly affect not only their pocketbooks but their very lives.

  Today, as yesterday, people are primarily moved in their choice of reading by their daily emotions, their personal, immediate, existential prejudices, biases, ambitions, desires, and—as we know too well in the Freudian age—by many subconscious yearnings and desires, and irrational hates and fears.

  Very well then: let us accept the fact.

  Should the American press bow to it? Accept it? Cater to it? Foster it?

  What else (the cynical and sophisticated will ask) is there to do?

  The American press, no less than the TV and radio, is big business. It is now, as never before, a mass medium. As big business, it faces daily vast problems of costliness and competition. As a mass medium, it cannot handle these problems without seeking to satisfy the public’s feelings, desires, and wants. It publishes in the noisiest and most distracted age in our history. It seems doomed to satisfy endlessly the tastes of the nation—pluralistic, pragmatic, emotional, sensuous, and predominantly irrational. By its big-business mass media nature it seems compelled to seek ever more and more to saturate the mass markets, to soak the common-denominator reader-sponge with what it wants.

  Certainly we must face this fact: if the American press, as a mass medium, has formed the minds of America, the mass has also formed the medium. There is action, reaction, and interaction going on ceaselessly between the newspaper-buying public and the editors. What is wrong with the American press is what is in part wrong with American society.

  Is this, then, to exonerate the American press for its failures to give the American people more tasteful and more illuminating reading matter? Can the American press seek to be excused from responsibility for public lack of information as TV and radio often do, on the grounds that, after all, “we have to give the people what they want or we will go out of business”?

  No. Not without abdicating its own American birthright, it cannot. The responsibility is fixed on the American press. Falling directly and clearly on publisher and editor, this responsibility is inbuilt into the freedom of the press itself. The freedom guaranteed by the Constitution under the First Amendment carries this responsibility with it.

  “Freedom,” as Clemenceau said, “is nothing in the world but the opportunity for self-discipline”—that is to say, voluntarily to assume responsibility.

  There are many valiant publishers, editors, and journalists in America who have made and are making courageous attempts to give readers a little more of what they should have, and a little less of what they want—or, as is more often true, what they only think they want, because they have no real knowledge of what is available to them. America owes these publishers and editors and journalists an incomparable debt of gratitude.

  What is really wrong with the American press is that there are not enough such publishers and editors. There is hardly an editor in this room who could not—if he passionately would—give every day, every year, a little more honest, creative effort to his readers on the great issues which face us—the issues which, in the years to come, must spell peace or disaster for our democracy. A beginning would be to try courageously, which is to say consistently, to keep such news (however brief) on the front page, playing it in some proportion to its real importance. For a newspaper, which relegates to the back pages news which is vital to the citizenry as a whole, in favor of sensational, “circulation building” headlines about ephemeral stories of crime, lust, sex, and scandal, is actively participating in the debasement of public taste and intelligence. Such a newspaper, more especially its editor, is not only breaking faith with the highest of democratic journalism, he is betraying his nation. And, you may be surprised to hear me say, he may even be courting commercial failure.

  For there is enough in American life in these exciting sixties to keep interested and absorbed many of the readers who have been written off as impossible to reach except through cheap sensationalism. The commercial challenge is not to achieve success by reaching backward into cliché-ridden ideas, stories, and situations. It is rather to recognize that uniquely now in this country there is natural and self-propelled drive toward a better life, more sustaining and relevant interests. There is, in sum, an infinity of new subjects that make exciting, inviting, and important exploration for the American press.

  There can be no doubt that honorable and patriotic publishers and devoted and dedicated editors can increase little by little, in season and out, the public’s appetite for better information. There can also be no doubt that they can also decrease, little by little, in the rest of their papers the type of stories which appeals to the worst in human nature by catering to the lowest-common-denominator taste in morals and ethics.

  Teddy Roosevelt once said that a good journalist should be part Saint Paul and part Saint Vitus.

  A good editor today must be part Santa Claus, part Saint Valentine, part Saint Thomas (the doubter), part Saint Paul, and certainly he must be part Saint Jude. Saint Jude, as you know, is the patron saint of those who ask for the impossible.

  It is not impossible to ask that the American press begin to reverse its present trend, which Dean Ed Barrett of the Columbia School of Journalism calls “giving the public too much froth because too few want substance.” If this trend is not reversed (which it can be only by your determined effort), the American press will increasingly become the creature, rather than the creator, of man’s tastes. It will become a passive, yielding, and, curiously, an effeminate press. And twixt the ads for the newest gas range, and the firmest girdle, the cheapest vacuum cleaner, and the best buy in Easter bonnets; twixt the sports page, the fashion page, the teenage columns, the children’s comics; twixt the goo, glop, and glamour handouts on Elvis Presley and Elizabeth Taylor, and above all twixt the headlines on the sexiest murders, and the type of political editorializing which sees the great presidential issues of the day as being between the case of the “boyish forelock” versus the “tricky ski-jump nose,” the press will lose its masculine prerogative, which is to educate, inform, engage the interest of, and guide the minds of free men and women in a great democracy.

  As I know that the American Society of Newspaper Editors holds hard to the belief in masculine superiority in the realm of the intellect, and could only view with horror the picture of the fourth estate as the “kept man” of the emotional masses, I—for one—am certain this will not happen.

  Let us watch then, with hope, for the signs of a new, vigorous, masculine leadership in the American press. For if you fail, must not America also fail in its great and unique mission, which is also yours: to lead the world towards life, liberty, and the pursuit of enlightenment—so that it may achieve happiness? It is that goal which the American press must seize afresh—creatively, purposefully, energetically, and with a zeal that holds a double promise: the promise of success and the promise of enlightenment.

  FCC’s Newton Minow Excoriates Broa
dcasters for Failing to Serve the Public Interest

  “Sit down in front of your television set when your station goes on the air… and keep your eyes glued to that set until the station signs off. I can assure you that you will observe a vast wasteland.”

  On May 9, 1961, soon after President John F. Kennedy appointed Adlai Stevenson’s law partner, Newton Minow, to be chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, the Chicago lawyer stunned the National Association of Broadcasters meeting in Washington with a denunciation of its stewardship of the public’s airwaves. When he was finished, a broadcaster told him, “That was the worst speech I ever heard in my whole life.” Trying to be kind, the head of the NAB, LeRoy Collins, assured the speaker, “That man has no mind of his own. He just repeats everything he hears.”

  The phrase that helped make the speech memorable borrowed the title of a well-known poem by T. S. Eliot, “The Waste Land,” punched up with a short adjective that added to the picture of desolation. Thirty years afterward, Minow told a media group, “The 1961 speech is remembered for two words—but not the two I intended to be remembered. The words we tried to advance were ‘public interest.’” In that Kennedy-era slap in the industry’s face, Minow had asked, “What do we mean by ‘the public interest’? Some say the public interest is merely what interests the public. I disagree.” Three decades later, Minow clung to his Kennedy cadences and added, “To me the public interest meant, and still means, that we should constantly ask, ‘What can television do for our country?’”

  ***

  …IT MAY ALSO come as a surprise to some of you, but I want you to know that you have my admiration and respect. Yours is a most honorable profession. Anyone who is in the broadcasting business has a tough row to hoe. You earn your bread by using public property. When you work in broadcasting, you volunteer for public service, public pressure, and public regulation. You must compete with other attractions and other investments, and the only way you can do it is to prove to us every three years that you should have been in business in the first place.

  I can think of easier ways to make a living.

  But I cannot think of more satisfying ways.

  I admire your courage—but that doesn’t mean I would make life any easier for you. Your license lets you use the public’s airwaves as trustees for 180 million Americans. The public is your beneficiary. If you want to stay on as trustees, you must deliver a decent return to the public—not only to your stockholders. So, as a representative of the public, your health and your product are among my chief concerns….

  I have confidence in your health. But not in your product.

  It is with this and much more in mind that I come before you today.

  One editorialist in the trade press wrote that “the FCC of the New Frontier is going to be one of the toughest FCCs in the history of broadcast regulation.” If he meant that we intend to enforce the law in the public interest, let me make it perfectly clear that he is right—we do.

  If he meant that we intend to muzzle or censor broadcasting, he is dead wrong.

  It would not surprise me if some of you had expected me to come here today and say in effect, “Clean up your own house, or the government will do it for you.”

  Well, in a limited sense, you would be right—I’ve just said it.

  But I want to say to you earnestly that it is not in that spirit that I come before you today, nor is it in that spirit that I intend to serve the FCC.

  I am in Washington to help broadcasting, not to harm it; to strengthen it, not to weaken it; to reward it, not to punish it; to encourage it, not threaten it; to stimulate it, not censor it.

  Above all, I am here to uphold and protect the public interest.

  What do we mean by “the public interest”? Some say the public interest is merely what interests the public.

  I disagree.

  So does your distinguished president. Governor Collins. In a recent speech he said, “Broadcasting, to serve the public interest, must have a soul and a conscience, a burning desire to excel, as well as to sell; the urge to build the character, citizenship, and intellectual stature of people, as well as to expand the gross national product…. By no means do I imply that broadcasters disregard the public interest…. But a much better job can be done, and should be done.”

  I could not agree more.

  And I would add that in today’s world, with chaos in Laos and the Congo aflame, with Communist tyranny on our Caribbean doorstep and relentless pressure on our Atlantic alliance, with social and economic problems at home of the gravest nature, yes, and with technological knowledge that makes it possible, as our president has said, not only to destroy our world but to destroy poverty around the world—in a time of peril and opportunity, the old complacent, unbalanced fare of action-adventure and situation comedies is simply not good enough.

  Your industry possesses the most powerful voice in America. It has an inescapable duty to make that voice ring with intelligence and with leadership. In a few years this exciting industry has grown from a novelty to an instrument of overwhelming impact on the American people. It should be making ready for the kind of leadership that newspapers and magazines assumed years ago, to make our people aware of their world.

  Ours has been called the jet age, the atomic age, the space age. It is also, I submit, the television age. And just as history will decide whether the leaders of today’s world employed the atom to destroy the world or rebuild it for mankind’s benefit, so will history decide whether today’s broadcasters employed their powerful voice to enrich the people or debase them….

  Like everybody, I wear more than one hat. I am the chairman of the FCC. I am also a television viewer and the husband and father of other television viewers. I have seen a great many television programs that seemed to me eminently worthwhile, and I am not talking about the much-bemoaned good old days of “Playhouse 90” and “Studio One.”

  I am talking about this past season. Some were wonderfully entertaining, such as “The Fabulous Fifties,” the “Fred Astaire Show,” and the “Bing Crosby Special”; some were dramatic and moving, such as Conrad’s “Victory” and “Twilight Zone”; some were marvelously informative, such as “The Nation’s Future,” “CBS Reports,” and “The Valiant Years.” I could list many more—programs that I am sure everyone here felt enriched his own life and that of his family. 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 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. I can assure you that you will observe a vast wasteland.

  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 badmen, 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 will see a few things you will enjoy. But they will be very, very few. And if you think I exaggerate, try it.

  Is there one person in this room who claims that broadcasting can’t do better?

  Well, a glance at next season’s proposed programming can give us little heart. Of seventy-three and a half hours of prime evening time, the networks have tentatively scheduled fifty-nine hours to categories of “action-adventure,” situation comedy, variety, quiz, and movies.

  Is there one network president in this room who claims he can’t do better?

  Well, is there at least one network president who believes that the other networks can’t do better?

  Gentlemen, your trust accounting with your beneficiaries is overdue.

  Never have so few owed so much to so many.

  Why is so much of television so bad? I have
heard many answers: demands of your advertisers; competition for ever higher ratings; the need always to attract a mass audience; the high cost of television programs; the insatiable appetite for programming material—these are some of them. Unquestionably these are tough problems not susceptible to easy answers.

  But I am not convinced that you have tried hard enough to solve them.

  I do not accept the idea that the present overall programming is aimed accurately at the public taste. The ratings tell us only that some people have their television sets turned on, and of that number, so many are tuned to one channel and so many to another. They don’t tell us what the public might watch if they were offered half a dozen additional choices. A rating, at best, is an indication of how many people saw what you gave them. Unfortunately it does not reveal the depth of the penetration, or the intensity of reaction, and it never reveals what the acceptance would have been if what you gave them had been better—if all the forces of art and creativity and daring and imagination had been unleashed. I believe in the people’s good sense and good taste, and I am not convinced that the people’s taste is as low as some of you assume.

  My concern with the rating services is not with their accuracy. Perhaps they are accurate. I really don’t know. What, then, is wrong with the ratings? It’s not been their accuracy—it’s been their use.

  Certainly I hope you will agree that ratings should have little influence where children are concerned. The best estimates indicate that during the hours of 5 to 6 P.M., 60 percent of your audience is composed of children under twelve. And most young children today, believe it or not, spend as much time watching television as they do in the schoolroom. I repeat—let that sink in—most young children today spend as much time watching television as they do in the schoolroom. It used to be said that there were three great influences on a child: home, school, and church. Today there is a fourth great influence, and you ladies and gentlemen control it.