Passage 3
When television is good, nothing——not the theatre, not the magazines, or newspapers——nothingisbetter. But when television is bad, nothing is worse. I invite you to sit down in front of your tele-vision set when your station goes on the air and stay there without a book, magazine, newspaper, oranything else to distract you and keep your eyes glued to that set until the station signs off. I can as-sure you that you will observe a vast wasteland. You will see a procession of game shows, violence,audience participation shows, formula comedies about totally unbelievable families, blood and thun-der, mayhem, more violence, sadism, murder, Western bad men, Western good men, privateeyes, gangster, still more violence, and cartoons. And endlessly, commercials that scream andoffend. And most of all, boredom. True, you will see a few things you will enjoy. But they will bevery, very few. And if you think I exaggerate, try it.
Is there no room on television to teach, to inform, to uplift, to stretch, to enlarge the capacitiesofof our children？ Is there no room for programs to deepen the children s understanding of children inother lands？ Is there no room for a children s news show explaining something about the world forthem at their level of understanding？ Is there no room for reading the great literature of the past,teaching them the great traditions of freedom？ There are some fine children s shows, but they aredrowned out in the massive doses of cartoons, violence, and more violence. Must these be yourtrademarks？ Search your conscience and see whether you cannot offer more to your young childrenwhose future you guard so many hours each and every day.
There are many people in this great country, and you must serve all of us. You will get no ar-gument from me if you say that, given a choice between a Western and a symphony, more peoplewill watch the Western. I like Westerns and private eyes, too, but a steady diet for the whole coun-try is obviously not in the public interest. We all know that people would more often prefer to be en-tertained than stimulated or informed. But your obligations are not satisfied if you look only to popu-larity as a test of what to broadcast. You are not only in show business; you are free to communicateideas as well as to give relaxation. You must provide a wider range of choices, more diversity, morealternatives. It is not enough to cater to the nation s whims——you must also serve the nation sneeds. The people own the air.
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