Thursday, October 9, 2014
Socially Relevant Coverage in the 1960s
Why did the networks begin to lengthen their news coverage, broadcast presidential debates, and program more socially-relevant documentaries like Crisis during the 1960s? How did this material illuminate civil rights issues and inflect the way that people understood national politics?
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Due to Minow’s Vast Wasteland speech, the networks begin to lengthen their news coverage, broadcast presidential debates, and program more socially relevant documentaries during the 1960s. Minow’s speech was an attack of TV. He encouraged TV executives to sit down and watch their own content. He believed that they were putting out trash and vapid content. Minow suggested they return to public service works and this caused networks to increase their news programing length in addition to extending news coverage and adding documentaries and specials to their schedules. By extending news coverage and additing documentaries and specials, like debates, issues like civil rights and politics were illuminated by calling attention to what was going on in other communities that maybe viewers did not know about. The video we watched in class of the police abuse during the protests in the south changed how America views these issues. It brought disturbing images that were unusual to some neighborhoods into the home, forcing these citizens to confront the issues. In addition, it allowed debates of presidential candidates and interviews, or interrogations, of individuals like Martin Luther King Jr. to the forefront of society. While Martin Luther King was being accused of causing violence and was being interrogated in the clip we watched in class of Meet The Press, it allowed his critical point of view to be shared. His calm and thorough answers showed a strong leader to the movement and provided hope at home for those who believed in the cause.
ReplyDeleteTelevision networks, since their beginning in the early fifties, had started to fall into a degrading loop. They started to take cheaper, easier routs to keep the program schedule full. Audiences would arguably watch anything that was put on the screen, as long as it occupied their relaxation time. Networks began to push out hollow storylines, just catering to an audience that was perceived as vegetables.
ReplyDeleteThis is what prompted the “Vast Wasteland” speech from FCC chairman Newton Minow. Minow called out the networks on the low quality and empty content of their broadcasts. The networks had to face the fact that their vegetable approach would no longer cut it.
Networks began to put out more substantial content, like news broadcasts and social documentaries. The new approach was to use their hold on the audience as an opportunity to educate and inform, rather than milk them for as many demographics as they could. A side effect of this was, as one might guess, audiences became more informed. Besides being easier to consume than a newspaper, television offered a more in-depth look at news through images and sound in on site reporting. Reading about racial incidents, for example, does not carry as much weight as seeing hate crimes caught on camera. The availability of this new information helped to chance the national attitude toward social and economic issues.
Newton Minow's 'Vast Wasteland' speech of 1961 publicly called out networks for not putting enough effort into creating quality content for viewers. But why were networks so lazy?
ReplyDeleteThe Big 3 networks of ABC, NBC, and CBS were an oligopoly at the time, controlling broadcasts to the large majority of audiences. It really began with their power as radio corporations, but the first major break they got during the era of television was the FCC licensing freeze of 1948-52, which slowed down the competition for crucial developmental years.
The government itself didn’t want to get too heavily involved in competition with the networks. While some of the groundwork had been laid for some public broadcasting, what we now know essentially as PBS and NPR, the United States never aspired to have extensive government-owned programming, like the BBC; no one seems to question this issue in the United States, though it begs one to ponder whether the commercial system is indeed the superior option.
Back to Minow. While his speech did prompt networks to increase their coverage of prevalent events to audiences, the truth is that Minow was pulling the opposite of a Teddy Roosevelt, by speaking loudly and having a tiny stick hidden in his back pocket. Yes, the networks appeased him somewhat, but the coverage was so abysmal to begin with, that the improvement didn’t necessarily bring the standard up to where it should be. The Big 3 did about enough to shut Minow up.
Today the biases in media are worse than ever before due to increased competition. Media corporations generally opt toward the cheaper, easier version of the news, which includes not hardcore journalism, but raw entertainment. This suggests that a commercial system charged with informing the public doesn’t operate particularly well during the industrial age, as an oligopoly without worries about competition will get lazy, and fierce competitors will get dirty.
(sorry it's not a direct answer to the question, but I thought it was interesting)
Networks began to lengthen their news coverage, broadcast presidential debates, and program more socially-relevant documentaries in the 1960's because they were a turning point for the culture of America. After the repressed 50's, the tension in regards to race, gender, and class, it was time for television to become something more than entertainment-- a resource for information. It was a way for Americans to become informed and educated on happenings without running around and participating in society (something which still happens today-- if not more so). In class we watched a debate between Kennedy and Nixon and, to the surprise of many Americans, the candidate who sounded like he won was different from the one who looked like he won. Those who listened on the radio thought Nixon was the clear winner while those who watched his sweaty blunder thought the composed Kennedy was Triumphant. The camera in Crisis offered a fly-on-the-wall objective perspective for viewers. This documentary and others were an opportunity to educate the public on political affairs and world events.
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