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.

-Newton N. Minow

Newton Norman Minow

January 17, 1926 – May 6, 2023

Newton Minow was an American attorney who served as chair of the Federal Communications Commission. He is famous for his speech referring to television as a "vast wasteland". While still maintaining a law practice, Minow served as the Honorary Consul General of Singapore in Chicago, beginning in 2001.

Minow was active in Democratic Party politics. He was an attorney in private practice concerning telecommunications law and was active in many nonprofit, civic, and educational institutions. He was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2016 by Barack Obama, whom he had known since the start of Obama's legal career.

While some applauded his "vast wasteland" assault on commercial television as a welcome criticism of excessive violence and frivolity, others criticized it as an elitist, snobbish attack on programming that many viewers enjoyed as well as a government intrusion into private enterprise. The S.S. Minnow of the 1964–67 television show Gilligan's Island was reputedly sarcastically named after him to express displeasure with his assessment of the quality of television.

Good Night Mr. Minow

Stay Tuned

Tony Figueroa