Newton N. Minow, who as President John F. Kennedy’s new FCC chairman in 1961 sent shock waves through an industry and touched the nerves of a nation addicted to banality and chaos by calling television on America “a vast wasteland,” died on Saturday at his home in Chicago. He is 97 years old.
His daughter Nell Minow said the cause was a heart attack.
On May 9, 1961, almost four months after President Kennedy called on the American people to renew their commitment to freedom around the world, Mr. Minow, a bespectacled bureaucrat who had just been put in charge of the Federal Communications Commission, rose before the 2,000 broadcast. executives at a lunch in Washington and invited them to watch television for a day.
“Stay there without a book, magazine, newspaper, profit-and-loss sheet or rating book to distract you, and keep your eyes on that set until the station signs off,” Mr. Minow said. “I can assure you that you will see a vast wasteland.”
The audience sat in shock as he continued:
“You’ll see a procession of action movies, violence, audience participation movies, formulaic comedies about completely unbelievable families, blood and thunder, mayhem, violence, sadism, murder, evil Western men, good Western men, private eyes, gangsters, lots of violence. and cartoons. And endless, commercials — lots of screaming, urging and hurtful. And most of all, boring.”
