‘Wires and Lights in a Box,’ Fifty Years Later

‘Wires and Lights in a Box,’ Fifty Years Later

Excerpt:

Today is the 50th anniversary of Edward R. Murrow’s seminal address about radio and television. Now known as the “wires and lights in a box” speech, Mr. Murrow implored the attendees at the Radio and Television News Directors Association convention to make the most of the two electronic media, rather than allowing them to insulate Americans “from the realities of the world in which we live.”

Edward R. Murrow Speech

Excerpt:

I have no technical advice or counsel to offer those of you who labor in this vineyard that produces words and pictures. You will forgive me for not telling you that instruments with which you work are miraculous, that your responsibility is unprecedented or that your aspirations are frequently frustrated. It is not necessary to remind you that the fact that your voice is amplified to the degree where it reaches from one end of the country to the other does not confer upon you greater wisdom or understanding than you possessed when your voice reached only from one end of the bar to the other. All of these things you know.

Comment: Worth reading because 50 years later for all the channel selections, TV is a vast wasteland.