Vast Wasteland Redux

In 1961, the certified liberal FCC Chairman, Newton Minow, called TV “a vast wasteland,” particularly for including too much entertainment without a message and not including enough public affairs programming. Minow's leadership of the fledgling PBS, with its overwhelming political leaning, exhibits what is deemed suitable public affairs programming -- programming the masses, that is.

Today, liberal critics of the media criticize it for including too much choice. As Adam D. Thierer, author or editor of five books on such topics as intellectual property and media regulation, writes in City Journal, “It’s a Golden Age of media—but not for long, if the Left has its way":

In truth, one can make a strong case that the new media—and the Internet, above all—are facilitating a more rigorous deliberative democracy and a richer sense of community. “In modern American political history, perhaps only the coming of the television age has had as big an impact on our national elections as the Internet has,” observes Raul Fernandez, chief executive of the software firm ObjectVideo. “But the effect of the Internet may be better for the long-term health of our democracy. For while TV emphasizes perception, control, and centralization, Internet-driven politics is about transparency, distribution of effort, and, most important, empowerment and participation—at whatever level of engagement the consumer wants.”

As for community, “the Digital Age hasn’t mechanized humanity and isolated people in a sterile world of machines,” believes Richard Saul Wurman, author of Information Anxiety. The Internet, he points out, has enabled people across the globe to band together and communicate in ways previously unimaginable.

What unifies the two schools of leftist media criticism, beneath their apparent opposition, is pure elitism. Media abundance (which the scarcity critics must implausibly wave away as a mirage) has meant more room for right-of-center viewpoints that, while popular with many Americans, the critics find completely unacceptable….

…, it seems: they won’t rest until all of us are watching, reading, and listening to the content that they prefer.

Unfortunately for the Left, free enterprise and choice does not agree with their agenda. How infuriating is reality!