NAEB Newsletter (Dec 1958)

They have kindly provided us with some so that we may fill your requests for single copies. Just drop a card to NAEB Headquarters. “NAEB Research Seminar”—a report of the seminar on educational broadcasting research held by the NAEB at the Ohio State University, De¬ cember 9 - 13, 1957. Available to NAEB members for 50c a copy (non-members, $1 a copy) from NAEB Headquarters. (This report will soon be mailed to all Active, Associate and Affiliate members auto¬ matically.) MEMO FROM THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR —Harry J. Skornia As explained in the November issue, this month’s column contains the first part of a two-part approach to a problem that I would like to attack and' which many of you have asked for: an effort to begin to evolve, with your help, a philosophy or definition of the role of educational broadcasting in the U. S. The second part of this statement, together with any re¬ actions you may have to this first part, will appear in the January issue. At a time when commercial—and to some extent all—mass media are meeting with increased criticism from various sources, it seems to me that educational operators and users of these media have a unique op¬ portunity to provide statesmanship and leadership in their uses. A few years ago, in answer to a chal¬ lenge to do many of the things which commercial media can’t do—even though they are desperately needed—we might have asked, “But what can we do? We’re so few and so small.” With some 80 mil¬ lion people within reach of educational radio stations and some 50 or so million within range of ETV sta¬ tions, I don’t believe we can any longer use that ex¬ cuse or rationalization. I believe the finger is squarely on us to provide the kind of leadership our nation has a right to expect from a largely publicly- financed, educationally-based broadcasting service, co-existing with a commercial service. In other word's, I think we’re now big enough so we should begin to evolve a philosophy, in a statement of which the citizens of the U. S., as well as of other nations, can find what we stand for. I do not presume to write such a statement here and now. It won’t come this way. But I would like to suggest the type of considerations which might be involved in such a philosophy. One of the slogans used a great deal at election time is “Vote!” Great sums of money are spent to get out the vote. Organizations are formed, and get grants, to promote such slogans. I have lent my ef¬ forts to such efforts myself, of course. But for many years I’ve seen certain objections to simplifying citizen responsibility this much. I wonder to what extent we should promote some such admonition as: “Vote! yes; but don’t vote without understanding the issues involved or having carefully studied, as if the fate of the U. S. depended on you, the qualifications of the candidates.” To quote from a book I shall refer to presently, “there is a radical difference between the election of an executive and a representative. For while the ex- cutive is in honor bound not to consider himself the agent of his electors, the representative is expected to be, within the limits of reason and the public interest, their agent.” If one spreads such an awkward slogan as I men¬ tioned above, of course, or even simplifies it to “Don’t vote till you know,” one has a considerable obligation to supply the facts needed before voters vote. Com¬ mercial media operators say they can’t afford it. But I wonder if we couldn’t be doing more of this sort of thing than we now do? Objectively done, isn’t this citizen education? And what media should qualify better for objectivity than publicly-owned ones, in which politics and commercial consideration aren’t so complexly related, or predominant? Several years ago I read Walter Lippmann’s De¬ cline of the West and The Public Philosophy. Re¬ cently I picked up the pocket version of these at an airport stand, and have reread them. Understanding what Mr. Lippmann means by the Public Philosophy involves the sort of fearless self-examination and self-redirection we should, I believe, be engaging in. He began these books years ago, he tells us, be¬ cause he felt “that there is a deep disorder in our society which comes not from the machinations of our enemies and from the adversities of the human condi¬ tion but from within ourselves.” He sees this disorder of democracies as some kind of sickness, an “inca¬ pacity to cope with reality, to govern their affairs, to defend their vital interests—to insure survival as free and democratic states.” What kind of leaders should we be educating our listeners to select? Mr. Lippmann believes we need men who must defy pressures and even “often swim against the tides of private feeling.” He traces the causes of the demise of democracy in ancient and modern nations. He traces, too, the decadence of the executive power of decision in many nations today—yielded to “assemblies, which could not ex¬ ercise them, to the mass of voters—who (not being prepared for them) passed them on to the party bosses—and the magnates of the new media of mass communication.” He sees the people as now having decision-making responsibilities and “power which they are incapable of exercising,” and because of lack of available information and time for the decision- 2 NEWSLETTER