Fifty years ago yesterday, then-Federal Communications Commission chairman Newton Minow gave a speech that still stands as possibly the best use of the government bully pulpit in modern history. Then a young newcomer in the Kennedy administration, Minow challenged audience members at the National Association of Broadcasters convention to spend an entire day watching their station, from sign-on to sign-off. “I can assure you,” he said, “that what you will observe is a vast wasteland.”
Though Minow later said he wanted “public interest” to be the words remembered from the speech, it became known as the “vast wasteland” speech that ushered in an era of public broadcasting and expansion of news coverage on broadcast television.
Last night at the National Press Club, Minow, 85 and still senior counsel at Sidley Austin in Chicago, spoke about the speech and shared the stage with current FCC chair Julius Genachowski. The event was co-sponsored by the Global Media Institute at George Washington University, and was aired by C-SPAN, which archived the footage here.
This content has been archived. It is available through our partners, LexisNexis® and Bloomberg Law.
To view this content, please continue to their sites.
Not a Lexis Subscriber?
Subscribe Now
Not a Bloomberg Law Subscriber?
Subscribe Now
LexisNexis® and Bloomberg Law are third party online distributors of the broad collection of current and archived versions of ALM's legal news publications. LexisNexis® and Bloomberg Law customers are able to access and use ALM's content, including content from the National Law Journal, The American Lawyer, Legaltech News, The New York Law Journal, and Corporate Counsel, as well as other sources of legal information.
For questions call 1-877-256-2472 or contact us at [email protected]
