Talk:Television and the Public Interest

Commentary from 2002
The full-text of the Maclean's article seems to be available online. http://www.media-awareness.ca/eng/issues/violence/resource/articles/toxict.htm Tomos 03:00 Dec 24, 2002 (UTC)

It may be, but I changed as much as possible, so that essentially everything, less the quote is fresh. - Zanimum

Removed: SOURCE Maclean's June 17, 1996; Author: JOE CHIDLEY with SHOWWEI CHU, SHARON DOYLE DRIEDGER and DAN HAWALESHKA in Toronto

And added a link to the article Tomos found. The "SOURCE" attribution made it look like Zanimum was plagiarizing the article, which is not the case. --Nate 05:56 Dec 24, 2002 (UTC)

Thanks, Nate. I think that's a good solution. Tomos 07:21 Dec 25, 2002 (UTC)

Failed nomination for Version 0.5
The nomination has failed. This article is only a Start-Class, and I have never heard of it before. Eyu100 03:11, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

Removed claim
I removed this from this entry - its citation is to a fan website that contains other info of questionable quality and no source citations.
 * The name of the sinking ship on the 1960's sitcom Gilligan's Island was inspired by Minow's speech. Gilligan creator Sherwood Schwartz insisted that Minow had "ruined television."

Removal of critique
I removed it because it is Original Research. We are not an editorial site, but an encyclopedia.--Toffile 02:09, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Unwarranted Removal of critique
The information upon which the article was based came from wikipedia TV listings for May 9, 1961. This is not opinion but fact. Minow said "wasteland" referring to content which, I demonstrated, was anything but waste matter.

Put it back. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 162.90.96.17 (talk) 13:43, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Move page
The actual name of the speech was Television and the Public Interest. I propose moving this article to Television and the Public Interest speech or something similar while noting that the speech is popularly known as the Wasteland Speech. Gobonobo T C 17:47, 23 January 2010 (UTC)


 * I tend to agree, since we're using an informal term. Similarly the Court-packing Bill got moved to its correct title a while ago. 76.117.247.55 (talk) 15:42, 13 November 2011 (UTC)


 * However, "vast wasteland" is by far the most famous phrase from the speech, both at the time and 50 years later.  Similarly, the 1941 State of the Union address is known as the "Four Freedoms speech" (though the four freedoms were only discussed in one section), and the Vice President of the CSA's Cornerstone Speech is named after what his opponents thought was the most important point in the speech (not what Stephens himself thought was most important in the speech). Wikipedia commonly goes with the most widely known or used name.... AnonMoos (talk) 18:39, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

Public Interest
Would it be possible for the quote to include the bit with "public interest" as well as the vast wasteland bit, as it seems to be the bit of the speech that he wanted remembered? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.242.65.12 (talk) 01:36, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

Impact (then and now)
The article fails to describe how TV changed as a result of the speech. Many of those same complaints about TV persist even to this day. E.g. IMO it is still a "vast wasteland". To me it is all a lot of scripted heroes and/or shallow characters living in worlds where "reality" is increasingly foreign. Yet as bad as TV sometimes is, the trends in mainstream movies seems to be even worse. As much as I agree with the "vast wasteland" label, I truly wonder just what has changed in the entertainment industry. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:6C48:7006:200:D84D:5A80:173:901D (talk) 03:24, 2 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Your personal observations are less than useless here. Wikipedia is driven by what the Reliable Sources say, and nothing else.104.169.22.138 (talk) 02:39, 9 May 2021 (UTC)

the "wasteland" POV
Need to be careful here - this was the FCC official's view, and we don't want to present it as fact.104.169.22.138 (talk) 02:38, 9 May 2021 (UTC)