Controversial former FCC chairman speaks at Stevenson Center

Newton Minow, the controversial former FCC chairman remembered for a 1961 speech labeling television "a vast wasteland," is the featured speaker at 2 p.m. Sunday, May 13, at the Adlai E. Stevenson II Historic Home, 25200 N. St. Mary's Road, Libertyville.

"Inside the Presidential Debates" will be Minow's topic for the Stevenson Center's Dialogues in Democracy monthly program. The talk is sponsored by the Stevenson Center on Democracy, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization. The home is owned by the Lake County Forest Preserve District.

Tickets are $15 at www.stevensoncenterondemocracy.org or call (847) 816-7433.

It's been 50 years since Minow dubbed television the "vast wasteland" and generated more news coverage than any administration official, other than President John F. Kennedy himself.

Minow is remembered for that speech, but there is much more to know and attendees can meet him after the talk in the historic home's living room for coffee and conversation.

For the last two decades, Minow has served on the Commission on Presidential Debates, an idea first proposed by Adlai E. Stevenson II in 1960. He will share his firsthand knowledge of the battles over who can debate and under what circumstances.

Minow has spent his career dedicated to reforming television to better serve the public interest. He has been chairman of PBS and on the board of CBS, but his most lasting contribution remains his leadership on televised presidential debates.

Back from service in World War II, Minow was a 26-year-old law school graduate when he worked for Gov. Adlai E. Stevenson's first presidential campaign in 1952. He served Stevenson again when "The Man from Libertyville" topped the Democratic ticket in the 1956 campaign.

It was Adlai Stevenson who first proposed televised candidates' debates during the 1960 Kennedy-Nixon presidential campaign. (Likewise, Stevenson's great-grandfather, Jesse Fell, had convinced his friend Abraham Lincoln to initiate the Lincoln-Douglas series of debates.)

At that time, Minow was campaigning for Kennedy. Reportedly, Robert Kennedy and Minow, while on the campaign trail, frequently talked at length about the increasing importance of television in the lives of their children. Minow decided to pursue an appointment to the Federal Communications Commission.

After the election, Kennedy appointed Minow chairman of the FCC. As its head, Milwaukee-native Minow famously criticized television programmers in a speech to the National Association of Broadcasters and began his career dedicated to reforming television to better serve the public interest.

In the speech on May 9, 1961, Minow said:

"When television is good, nothing - not the theater, not the magazines or newspapers - nothing is better. But when television is bad, nothing is worse. I invite each of you to sit down in front of your television set when your station goes on the air and stay there for a day without a book, without a magazine, without a newspaper, without a profit and loss sheet or a rating book to distract you. Keep your eyes glued to that set until the station signs off. I can assure you that what you will observe is a vast wasteland."

Over more than 50 years, many battles, both legal and personal, have determined who has been allowed to debate and under what circumstances. In the most recent of his four books, "Inside the Presidential Debates: Their Improbable Past and Promising Future," Minow argues that the debates are one of the great accomplishments of modern American electoral politics.

Though the debates were once unique in the democratic world, they are now emulated across the globe, and offer citizens the only opportunity to see the candidates speak in direct response to one another in a discussion of major issues.

Looking to the challenges posed by third-party candidates and the emergence of new media such as YouTube, Minow has ideas for the future, calling for the debates to become less formal, with candidates allowed to question each other and citizens allowed to question candidates directly. The Internet may serve to broaden the debates' appeal and informative power even more.

In addition to televised debates, Minow's accomplishments include persuading Congress to pass legislation clearing the way for communications satellites.

"When I toured the space program with Kennedy, he was surprised to see me," Minow said.

Minow explained to the President, "Communications satellites will be much more important than sending man into space because they will send ideas into space."