From the March 17th Chicago Tribune by Melissa Harris.
The date was May 9, 1961, President Kennedy's 35-year-old FCC Chairman, Newton Minnow gave a speech about television that has become engrained in America's conscious when he said TV was a "vast wasteland."
Minnow says he did not put the words in the speech, but rather that famous journalist and speechwriter Bartlow Martin did.
The ship on the TV show "Gilligan's Island", the SS Minnow, was named after him. I didn't know that.
Harris interviews Minnow and asked if the wasteland is vaster today. "I would say it's more nuanced." When he gave the speech, there was no UHF or cable TV with greater variety of alternatives. So "that's why I think it's much better today."
Minnow joked about how his daughters want "On to a Vaster Wasteland" inscribed on his tombstone.
The thing he was proudest of during his tenure with the FCC was the launch of the first communications satellite. President Kennedy questioned him about it, and Minnow said, "Mr. President, communications staellites are more important than sending a man into space."
Kennedy said, "Well, why is that?"
Minnow replied, "Well, communications satellites will send ideas into space, and ideas last much longer than people."
An Interesting Man. --Cooter
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