The Kennedy-Nixon debates

On Sept. 26, 1960, a debate between the two major candidates for the presidency of the United States was presented on television for the first time. CBS produced the debate, under the direction of Don Hewitt, who would go on to be the executive producer of 60 Minutes (begun 1968). A total of four debates between the Democratic candidate, Sen. John F. Kennedy, and the Republican candidate, Vice Pres. Richard M. Nixon, were simulcast on all three networks, and production responsibilities were rotated among them. The first debate, though, was the most influential and the most watched, reaching a then-record audience estimated to be about 70 million. That important political issues could be discussed by the candidates for the country’s highest office and made effortlessly accessible to the nearly 90 percent of American homes that had televisions by 1960 demonstrated television’s ability to play an important civic role in American life. Broadcast without commercials, this long-form debate suggested that television could assist the democratic process beyond the airing of 30-second commercials; it promised estimable uses for the new medium.

Broadcasting the Kennedy-Nixon debates was not the only attempt by networks to improve their scandal-tarnished reputations. All three networks also introduced documentary series in 1959 and 1960 that were designed to provide in-depth reporting on serious subjects important to the nation. CBS Reports (begun 1959 and irregularly scheduled) was the most celebrated. In 1960 Edward R. Murrow, the respected pioneer of broadcast journalism, was the chief correspondent on Harvest of Shame, a CBS Reports documentary about the plight of migrant farm labourers. Beautifully photographed, powerfully argued, and strongly supporting federal legislation to protect migrant workers, Harvest of Shame illustrated how effectively the journalistic essay could work on television.

For all of the prestige that TV garnered from the broadcasts of the Kennedy-Nixon debates, however, controversy quickly surrounded them as well. Many argued that television was changing the political process and that how one looked and presented oneself on TV was more important than what one said. This seemed to be the case during the first debate. Younger, tanned, and dressed in a dark suit, Kennedy appeared to overshadow the more haggard, gray-suited Nixon, whose hastily applied makeup job scarcely covered his late-in-the-day stubble of facial hair. Informal surveys taken after the debate indicated that audiences who listened on the radio tended to think Nixon had won, while those who watched on TV claimed victory for Kennedy. Many also believed that Kennedy won the election because he won the first debate and that he won the first debate because he looked better on TV than his opponent. (It must be remembered, however, that the un-telegenic Nixon would go on to win two presidential elections.) Arguments about the impact of television on politics, of course, continue to be central to the political process to this day. Programs such as CBS Reports would become progressively more rare on television, and Harvest of Shame would be among the last of Murrow’s assignments for CBS. Disenchanted by the increasingly commercial nature of television and the impact that trend was having on the CBS news department, Murrow left the network in 1961 and accepted President Kennedy’s appointment as director of the U.S. Information Agency.

Minow’s “vast wasteland”

Also joining the Kennedy administration in 1961 was Newton Minow, whom the president appointed as the chair of the Federal Communications Commission (FFC), the regulatory agency of the U.S. government that oversees broadcasting. Although the FCC can exercise no prior restraint of television content, it is charged with ensuring that stations operate within the “public interest, convenience, and necessity.” All broadcast stations must be licensed by the FCC, which has the power to rescind or to not renew the license of any station it deems is not acting in the public interest. Before the deregulatory actions of the 1970s and ’80s, this power loomed even larger over stations and, because networks depend upon affiliates to air their programs, over network executives as well. As chairman, Minow addressed the National Association of Broadcasters on May 9, 1961.

In his speech, Minow articulated the thoughts of many intellectuals about television. He praised the Golden Age anthology dramas (most of which had already left the air), the documentary series, and the presidential debates (which helped put Kennedy, and therefore Minow, in office). He went so far as to claim that “when television is good…nothing is better.” He continued, however, to point out that when it is bad, “nothing is worse.” He then invited the station owners and employees to watch their own stations from sign-on to sign-off, and he assured them that what they would see would be a “a vast wasteland” of “game shows, violence, audience participation 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,” all punctuated by an endless stream of commercials. Although the First Amendment precludes the FCC from directly regulating the content of programming, Minow’s language in this speech was powerful and aggressive with regard to the broadcasting industry. “I understand that many people feel that in the past licenses were often renewed pro forma,” Minow said as his speech was drawing to a close. “I say to you now: renewal will not be pro forma in the future. There is nothing permanent or sacred about a broadcast license.”