Abandoned in the Wasteland Minow, Newton N./ Lamay, Craig L.

"Shall we just carelessly allow children to hear any casual tales which may be devised by casual persons, and to receive into their minds ideas for the most part the very opposite of those which we should wish them to have when they are grown up?" -- Plato Every day, millions of Americans leave their children in the care of total strangers. (from the first line)

Winner of the Silver Gavel Award from the American Bar Association
Two well-known experts-Newton N. Minow is a former chairperson of the FCC-suggest bold new ways to think about television and its influence on American life and, most urgently, on American children. The authors argue that to defend an unrestricted freedom to broadcast by invoking the First Ammendent is an improper use of constitutional principle. They remind us that broadcasters are required by law to serve the public interest, and that the Supreme Court and Congress have affirmed that service to children is a broadcaster''s legal obligation.

From the Publisher:
In this book the authors argue that the First Amendment can be used on behalf of children, to help make television a force that will nurture and not harm them. To this end they offer hardheaded, workable ideas for an effective children's television policy and for new ways to ensure that our children travel safely on the information superhighway.Broadcasters, parents, public officials, and teachers have all abandoned our children to a wasteland of vacuous, often violent television programing. In this eloquent book, Newton Minow and Craig LaMay persuasively demonstrate that this is a false application of the First Amendment. Broadcasters are required by law to serve the public interest, and the Supreme Court and Congress have said that service to children is a broadcaster's obligation under law, they remind us; the First Amendment can be used on behalf of children, to help make television a force that will nurture and not harm them.

Author Bio

Newton N. Minow

Newton N. Minow was chairman of the Federal Communications Commission during the Kennedy Administration, and made a well-known and prophetic warning that television was becoming "a vast wasteland." He later held positions as chairman of WTTW, Chicago's public television station, chairman of the Public Broadcasting Service, and professor of communications law and policy at Northwestern University.

Praise

New York Times Book Review
"The books's main and irrefutable point, made early and often, is that television has been truned 'into an instrument of child exploitation and abuse,' taken up 'principally by salesmen, animated assault artists and leering talk-show hosts.'" - Walter Goodman 07/16/1995

New Republic
"Minow and LaMay have done a real service by identifying the limits of free markets in free speech, by recalling Madisonian aspirations and by showing...that concerns about the effects of the mass media on children are not limited, and should not be limited, to the far right." - Cass R. Sunstein 08/21--28/1995

Kirkus Reviews
"...their eloquent defense of public television comes at a crucial time." 05/01/1995

Civilization
"...it is refreshingly principled, compared to much of the opportunistic preaching on the subject." - Ann Hulbert September-October 1995

Product Attributes

Book Format:		Paperback
Number of Pages:		0242
Publisher:		Hill & Wang

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Abandoned in the Wasteland Children, Television, and the First Amendment (Paperback)

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