(23:15)

     Newton Minow:   “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 own television set when your station goes on the air and stay there, and stay there for a day, without a book, without a magazine, without a newspaper, without a profit and-loss sheet or 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 a vast wasteland (of junk).

     You will see a procession of game shows, formula comedies about totally unbelievable families, blood and thunder, mayhem, violence, sadism, murder, western bad men, western good men, private eyes, gangsters, more violence, and cartoons.  And endlessly, commercials -- many screaming, cajoling, and offending. A nd most of all, boredom.  True, you'll see a few things you will enjoy.  But they will be very, very few.  And if you think I exaggerate, I only ask you to try it.

Newton Minow to the National Association of Broadcasters on May 9, 1961

     ...but of course network news broadcasters, or for that matter every broadcaster today, always believe that “vast wasteland” refers to others.  We all knowingly wink at shabby content, while blinking during our own production practices.

     My classical, critical, surreal, media ethnography is often the missing ingredient inside media studies.