As we write this, more than a century has passed since words and music were first sent successfully through the air and more than three-quarters of a century since pictures were added to the words and music.
During the past century and into this new one, broadcasting and its related new and emerging media means of distribution have been both praised and vilified. They have been deserving of both: praised when they have fulfilled their potential and obligation to society by providing unbiased and stimulating ideas, information, and entertainment that mark and contribute to the progress and growth of humanity, but vilified when the ideological biases of their owners and/or operators supersede their objective responsibility and inculcate in their audiences partisan support of or opposition to economic, political, social, or environmental problems or needs that suit the owners’ rather than the public’s interests.
Because the media are the most powerful forces in the world for influencing the minds, emotions, and, frequently, even the actions of humankind, we continue to attempt, in each succeeding edition of The Broadcast Century since it was first published in 1992, to relate the development of broadcasting and media to the political, economic, and social world they both reflect and affect. We recognize that the media (in many countries radio and television alone) have awesome power—and responsibility.
We are patriotic enough to believe in the democratic principles of our country—that they are designed to serve the many, not the few. We have both served our country beyond our everyday commitments to make our democracy work for everyone, one of us in the combat infantry in World War II and the other also in the army, during the Vietnam War.
We are unabashedly prejudiced in that we agree with the Congress of the United States in its establishment of the law of the land that the airwaves belong to the people. We believe that broadcasting has a responsibility to serve the public interest, convenience, and necessity, as stated in the Communications Act of 1934. We do not hesitate to note when government, the broadcast industry, advertisers, or pressure groups have attempted to usurp the people’s right to uncensored news and the highest quality of entertainment, culture, education, information, and all the other format content of which the media are capable.
When broadcasting is used to manipulate and control the public—as, for example, it has been used in our electoral system to promote political candidates it favors and ignore those it does not favor, and by promoting “sound bites” instead of substance, thus creating its chosen candidates as front-runners and winners—we have tried to show it.
In the ending chapter of this edition of The Broadcast Century—not the last or final chapter, of course, in broadcasting’s continuing history—the chronology of events and practices in the media reveals one of our major concerns: that the democratic principle that the airwaves belong to the people is rapidly being eroded. The removal of restrictions on media monopolies by both major political parties in the United States has facilitated and encouraged conglomeration and consolidation that serve the rich and powerful at the expense of the not so rich and powerful, including those who own and operate media outlets; writers, producers, directors, performers, and technicians who work in the media; and the vast viewing and listening public. We try to note such trends, whether or not we step on the toes of the rich and powerful.
We praise the media when they present unbiased coverage of events that affect the lives of all people—events relating to war, terrorism, the environment, the economy, education, poverty, and other areas vital to our 21st century existence. We criticize the media when their personal vested interests distort the information they present to the public, whether through false, incomplete, or omitted reports. We believe our democracy can only survive through open truth and we note without hesitation where the media have reported as truth the lies of high government officials, distorted the facts and figures of a shrinking economy and increasing unemployment, omitted information known by the rest of the world about war and terror, and helped cover up information about who knew what and when about corruption. These actions are taken in order to protect others in and out of politics who are, like the media moguls, also rich and powerful.
When we believe the principles of democracy are being served by the media, we do not hesitate to praise and when we believe they are not being served we do not hesitate to criticize—whether the subject is a producer, a pauper, or a president.
We have tried to provide an easily readable work for the student and the public alike, one that deals with the key issues, events, and people in the history of radio, television, and the newer media. We do not pretend to the erudition of Erik Barnouw’s trilogy on broadcasting, A Tower in Babel, The Golden Web, and The Image Empire, nor to the volume of data and information in Christopher Sterling and John Michael Kittross’s Stay Tuned. In relating the history of the media to the world in which it has developed and continues to grow, in this edition we have attempted to strengthen the time lines that parallel key events in given years in broadcasting and media and in the world at large. We have also continued with our use of “retroboxes,” which provide first-hand accounts from people involved in the past and present of broadcast history.
We are grateful to those broadcast pioneers and current practitioners who generously offered advice, information, and commentary, and it is to them that we also dedicate this book.
ROBERT L. HILLIARD AND MICHAEL C. KEITH