The Morning Call, Tuesday, March 22, 2005
Opinion piece by Dr. Gregory Skutches addresses the power of television and how the "dumbing down" of television was "conspiratorial and deliberate" and was, as Newton Minow, FCC commissioner in 1961, referred to as a "vast wasteland." He cites examples such as the rigged quiz shows of the 1950s and the cancellation of popular weekly anthology dramas because they targeted the wrong type of audience for advertising purposes. He states that average Americans spend about two years of their lives, cumulatively, watching television commercials. The result is "a distracted and therefore ill-informed electorate" that does not "seem to know that we already have the technology that could free us from our addiction to fossil fuel." Unfortunately, . . . "when the Senate recently approved President Bush's proposal to drill for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska, we weren't paying attention. . . ." We were probably too busy watching television. Skutches notes, "If Farnsworth had been exposed as a child to his own creation, he probably would have been unable to invent it in the first place."
Press Release: Consider Philo Farnsworth when you think about TV | Posted on: 3/22/2005
For more info:
Tom McNamara, Executive Director of Communications
DeSales University | 2255 Station Avenue | Center Valley, PA 18034
610.282.1100 x1219 | Tom.McNamara@desales.edu |
Apply Today
