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PREFACE
American radio is for all the people, and there is much for all the people. For any group to refuse to listen to any¬ thing and everything merely because there is much that they object to, merely because there is much that they consider blatantly stupid, is in itself blatantly stupid. It is like going through the whole of life and saying, “We found some ugly sights, and we are not looking.’’ It is like going through the whole of literature and saying, “We found some vulgar doggerel and we are not reading.”
I do not know as much about radio as I should like to, but I know as much as my slender talents for absorption have made it possible for me to learn. I’ve taught radio in universities, written it, produced it, lectured about it, listened to it, defended it, attacked it, heard charges and acquittals from many sources. I have brought several people into it and urged a few out. Radio is not unlike any other great business in so far as its two basic needs are concerned; it needs people who know things, and it needs people who can do things. It goes to considerable expense to supply the relatively proper amounts of them both. For myself, if I may be permitted the slang, I think that radio is “the stuff,” but I would not think so if it were made up of people who were as myopic and unrealistic about radio as are the good ladies who will not listen. Creative criticism never has anything to do with groups or movements. Creative criticism is a peculiarly individual thing. It will be time to take the daytime serials off the air when the women who don’t like them now can persuade the women who do like them not to like them any more. I doubt if they can do this. Most of the women who do not listen have a boiled dinner on top of their head instead of a hat ; and in the case of some, I fear, a boiled dinner inside their head instead of the machinery of thought.
There are differences in this year’s book from the one that appeared last fall. I have not put individual properties into so many separate classifications. Six or seven pieces appear under the general heading “Best Scripts,” five or six under “Best Comedy,” some under “Best News Re¬ porting.” A few still get their necessary independent biffing,
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