Recapping "A Vast Wasteland"

Last week, the Berkman Center for Internet & Society, the Dean's Office at Harvard Law School, and the Nieman Foundation for Journalism co-hosted a special event with former chairman of the FCC Newton N. Minow. At the event, he reflected on his landmark speech to the National Association of Broadcasters on “Television and the Public Interest,” in which he described television programming as a "vast wasteland" and drew parallels to its relevance in light of new challenges presented by the digital age.

We have posted video from the event to our site, and also wanted to share articles and resources from around the web that covered the event, which featured many special guests -- including two other former FCC chairmen, faculty, journalists, practitioners, and more.

Video from the forum can be found here:

Featuring Newt Minow (Former Chairman of the FCC / Sidley Austin), Dean Martha Minow (Harvard Law School), Ann Marie Lipinski (Nieman Foundation), Jonathan Alter (Bloomberg View), Terry Fisher (Harvard Law School), Yochai Benkler (Harvard Law School), John Palfrey (Harvard Law School), and Jonathan Zittrain (Harvard Law School). Special guests include Susan Crawford (Cardozo School of Law), Perry Hewitt (Harvard University), Ellen Goodman (Rutgers University School of Law - Camden), Virginia Heffernan (New York Times), Reed Hundt (Former Chairman of the FCC), Kevin Martin (Former Chairman of the FCC / Patton Boggs), Nicholas Negroponte (One Laptop per Child), Ethan Zuckerman (C4/Berkman Center), and more.

Ethan Zuckerman liveblogged the discussion:

Why give such an incendiary speech? Television was the dominant medium of the era. The televised Kennedy/Nixon debate had decided the election. But there was little discussion about public interest and public responsibility on the part of broadcasters. Minow’s contribution as an FCC chairman was to try to expand choice – licensing the UHF spectrum, early cable TV systems and satellite television. When Kennedy invited him to visit the space program, Minow observed that satellites were more important to sending a man into space, because they permitted sending ideas into space, and ideas last longer than people. Minow notes that there’s a strong possibility that the recent events of the Arab Spring were a product, in part, of satellite communication.

The Harvard Gazette also covered the event:

Minow gave his famous speech in what he called “the television age,” when the government’s role, as he saw it, was to expand viewers’ choices, hoping that increased competition would lead to better programming in news, entertainment, and children’s education. “Above all, I am here to uphold and protect the public interest,” he said at the time.

Photos from the event can be found here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/berkmancenter/sets/72157627533935389/with/6142046393/

And for additional coverage, see:

Last updated