Reverend Benny & Mister Sid's At Your Service #60

I fantasize about a small army of activists who by assorted means turn off television (at least) in public places.

By Glen Bledsoe

(Salem) - I'm sitting in the Phoenix Inn Suite continental breakfast area in Bend this past Sunday, but it could have been anywhere. Plates clatter. Silverware clinks. Toasters pop. The light buzz of conversations fill the air.

To one side hangs a wide screen television. Why is it there and why is it on? No one is watching it. It's turned down too low, in fact, to be heard.

The screen is filled with blocks of color and odd bits of text (pseudo news about pseudo events) as if by overlaying trivia with fragments of event-data we will feel better about ourselves for being able to multitask.

The people on screen seem lost to themselves, tired perhaps. They know they aren't interesting or important, but are going through the motions.

Why do people feel the need to have it on? Perhaps they don't. Perhaps they are completely oblivious to the rectangle of moving light. More likely they catch glimpses of it out of the corner of their eyes just in case something important is revealed.

I haven't owned a television set in decades. Recently I bought software which will allow my computer to receive television programming, and I'm astonished by what little there is of interest.

Certainly not what passes for news. I'm not the first to say it, but television news programming is abysmal. It's frightening to think of all the Americans who believed they are informed because they watch the news.

I'm not just talking about the hypocrisy of FOX News, but about any news outlet too lazy to actually get out of their offices and investigate events.

I fantasize about a small army of activists who by assorted means turn off television (at least) in public places. I don't wish to be exposed to side-stream television any more than I wish to inhale side-stream smoke.

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Influential to the critics of television and not television itself which has metastasized into our culture. At this point removing the tumor would probably kill the patient.

It was Newton Minow, then Chairman of the FCC, who said in a 1961, I'll repeat that, 1961 speech that television is a "vast wasteland". His speech is cited as one of the 100 most influential speeches of the 20th century. Minow is still alive and at 83 is still practising law. My question is how was it influential? Not only has nothing changed, it's gotten demonstrably worse.

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