:04:00
...of fouling his own comfortable nest...
:04:03
...and your organization may be accused
of having given hospitality...
:04:06
...to heretical and even dangerous ideas.
:04:10
But the elaborate structure of networks,
advertising agencies and sponsors...
:04:14
...will not be shaken or altered.
:04:17
It is my desire, if not my duty, to try to talk
to you journeymen with some candor...
:04:21
...about what is happening
to radio and television.
:04:24
And if what I say is responsible...
:04:26
...I alone am responsible
for the saying of it.
:04:30
Our history will be what we make of it.
:04:33
And if there are any historians
about 50 or 100 years from now...
:04:37
...and there should be preserved
the kinescopes...
:04:39
...of one week of all three networks...
:04:42
...they will there find, recorded
in black and white and in color...
:04:46
...evidence of decadence,
escapism and insulation...
:04:49
...from the realities of the world
in which we live.
:04:52
We are currently wealthy, fat,
comfortable and complacent.
:04:57
We have a built-in allergy
to unpleasant or disturbing information.
:05:01
Our mass media reflect this.
:05:04
But unless we get up off our fat surpluses
and recognize that television in the main...
:05:09
...is being used to distract, delude,
amuse and insulate us...
:05:14
...then television
and those who finance it...
:05:16
...those who look at it
and those who work at it...
:05:19
...may see a totally different picture
too late.