1965 National Association of Educational Broadcasters Convention; Concurrent Special Interest Session: National Conference on Educational Radio
- Transcript
I hope that all of you here were able to hear the keynote address splay under-secretary cone of AGW. If you listen carefully through that of course there was a very simple remark in there but a very significant one. But there's been a great deal of interest in the future of educational radio that has shown itself in the past two years he said. Ah that statement perhaps is relevant to this session which is billed as the National Conference on educational radio. A word of explanation about what this is all about. And then I think we will be able to put into proper perspective the remarks that will be made by our most distinguished panelist mourning. As many of you know it wasn't quite two years ago when the idea of national educational radio was officially born. The Chicago seminar on national educational radio and Renee Evy was held there in January 1964.
It was at that time that a newly elected board of directors of the radio division under the new anybody decided to set up its own division and anybody had quarters within one year or less. And actually some six or seven months later on September 1 1064 what few hairs were left on this head were doomed of course because on September 1 last year any r opened its offices officially and Bob Underwood has yet to get over it in Atlanta because what we're doing is giving him more work. But in any event it's been a very exciting year. And those of you that have participated in many of the special things that we've tried to get going this past year know that it's been the most rewarding when in many ways. About six months ago the NE our board of directors had good reason to take stock of itself in terms of where national educational radio in fact was
heading. And through the good offices of the Johnson Foundation in Racine Wisconsin we were invited there for a kind of retreat meeting at the Wingspread conference center. We spent five very rewarding days and out of those meetings. Aside from good spirited games of very good ideas one very specific one the need at long last particularly in the age of DTV to find a way to break this cycle so that educational radio is no longer doomed to be the stepchild forever. To find some way to get the kind of national attention paid which in fact would make it possible for educational radio to grow up and be a national resource that it's always been capable of being in a very organized way and as a kind of a mutual partnership we worked out a scheme with the Johnson Foundation which in effect was a project looking towards the development of a conference on educational radio as a
national resource. The first step of that is many of you know there. Was a preliminary Grant made to any art by the Johnson Foundation earlier this year to begin studying some of those needs what some of the problems are some of the Potentials the parameters of what we had in mind was to find ways not to talk to each other anymore we've been doing that for many many years certainly the great tradition of the allergen house seminars and so on are behind us. That isn't our problem anymore we also have the U.S. mails via memo to managers and so on our need now is to find the decision makers in America and get them first of all to be aware that we exist. And the decision makers in industry and education in government and so on. And this is what we had in mind as a as our task. So we began talking with some people behind the scenes including the distinguished panel. You see before you today and this session this morning therefore represents the first public attempt to begin to get
some of these ideas out on the table. It is not meant to be a definitive plan for the eventual national conference it is meant instead to begin to stimulate our collective imaginations toward some of these mutual goals. The first speaker is a man who if memory serves me correctly Charles has the unusual honor of having been named in as stigmatic bird as long ago as 1946 is that correct. Professor Charles a statement as you well know is a teacher extraordinary and a man who I have been very fortunate to call my teacher. I was one of his students around one thousand fifty one thousand fifty one. And it was a year I shall never forget. For one thing he made me do a lot of reading. For another thing he almost succeeded in getting me to use proper English grammar. He didn't quite succeed but he tried.
In any event. Professor Seaborn as you well know has had a long and distinguished career in the mass media to read his the tie would be like taking the next 45 minutes at least had about 200 words a minute. So I will just give you some of the most important highlights. He's a former vice president of the BBC and during his 12 years there was director of adult education. Director of talks director of program planning. He has been an adviser to President Conan at Harvard University during World War 2. He served in various capacities with the w o the OWI Office of War Information and from the end of the war to the present time as chairman of the Department of Communications and education at New York University. He is as I suspect all of us in this room know one of the authors of a little book called The public service responsibilities of broadcast licensees or better known by the color of its cover
The Blue Book. He's been a consultant to just about everybody in the world including a few minor bodies like the Ford Foundation the Canadian Royal Commission on National developments and the Arts Letters and sciences the West German rocket wet German ice. Many of you know we we had a German project very recently but there was no collusion involved. Professor Siegman is the author of a number of distinguished books in this field. Radio second chance which interestingly enough dealt with radio's opportunity to take advantage of the FM spectrum and how prophetic he was in that book radio television and society the USGO publication television and education in the United States and TV in our school crisis. I might mention also that for five years he's been chairman and now member of the board of directors of the New York Civil Liberties Union. He's made a great deal of personal pleasure to be able to introduce to you now Professor Charles a safe room and
there are now. Gentlemen ladies and gentlemen I address you with the advantage of having lived a double life. Or perhaps you'll remove his understanding of having lived two lives one on the barricades of action. Twenty years of it. Twenty five years on the Prophet's Auriol side lines of observation and reflection. Sorry for neither of them. The combination has been wonderful. I've had a chance over 25 years to reflect on what I and others in the early days of broadcasting did and failed to do. And it's given me a perspective that on the job I didn't have my theme is enormous. It is the nature of the dimensions and the significance of the job that lies ahead of you. And I'd like to say just a brief word about those three
things I conceived of your job as educational radio broadcasters as nothing less than the restoration in a confused weld that grows more impersonal by the day. Have a sense of individuality to men and women bewildered by the world they live in. A restoration of the true sense of all the delights and the agonies and the opportunities in the Bible the duties of being what we call a human being. I see the job as as big as that as big as that. Also not only in national but in international terms. I believe that your job is to recreate this sense of significant individuality can commentate with the world that we live in the context of the modern world which is changing in a revolutionary sense to create the awareness that we are members one of
another in a global I no longer in a merely national sense. So much for the dimensions of the drop the geo doing. The way to go to achieve that job that restoration is by a form of restoration of its own kind namely the restoration of radio to its proper place in the spectrum of modern mass communication. I insist in spite of the claims of some of the actions of some to achieve that claim that radio is not dead. The radio has been buried alive and needs disinterred Not that this internment is in process. Even the commercial broadcasters are beginning to see profits in radio but beyond the disinterment the temporary process of first aid is necessary and is going to be a long time yet before we restore all this living corpse to a
strength that allows it to stand on its own feet and function for itself. But that's what I think you've got to do. Now the odds are against your realizing this aim. I say fortunately formidable. You've got a rather slim chance which makes it a good job. This isn't the job for people with second rate minds all queasy stomachs. This is a heroic job and you've got to establish the sense of the heroic in your own selves and your own work. If this job is going to be done at all. I offer you a 10 point spread a J for the achievement of this goal. And if what I now say sounds like a recitation from seeds and catalog you can blame Jerry for that in asking me in 15 minutes to do what I couldn't competent to do in 15 hours. It is fatuous but let me say this to you. There's nothing that I'm going to say to you today
that you don't know already. But ultimately in the preface to the first radio play he ever wrote remarked on the marvelous distinctive properties of the radio medium and added that these are all known. But the trouble is that we don't know them with enthusiasm and has to know the obvious with enthusiasm is what I want to attempt to achieve with you today. So here's the seedsman is cataloged and that stops practically with hardware aspects of the job. The harsh realities of the material. The cynic way non of the achievement of the go as I've described it is let's face it money lots of money.
You've got to aim high. Your conception should be of the dimensions of a hundred million dollar operation and a global operation at that. Go get it. Making money is the easiest thing in the world. Raising money is not quite so easy but it's relatively easy. But there's a catch attaching to it. No room or any body will raise not one penny from. And you don't know governmental institutional or private unless you can sell them a bill of goods. You've got to sell them a big idea. Well for you all plans should be big ideas intelligently and conceived in the proper order. I guess the basic idea. But that don't bring you 100 million dollars.
You've got to spell out that idea in chapter and verse and in detail. You've got to provide a bill of particulars that touches the imagination and the self-interest of your donors. You've got to be shrewd and realistic spell out this great conception as I conceive of it. And as I've expressed it in terms that can easily be recognized in the local the regional the national and that international references spell it out and you'll get your hundreds of millions. Because self interest is the deepest of human motivations. You can catch customers by seeing if they've got something in it for themselves. But be aware here you may find owners who will be glad to give you money for purposes of their own as to them establish your own priorities of neat and let those override the
distracting temptations of getting money in large sums for purposes that are not consonant with your bill of particulars. Write your own ticket and then said. Proposition number three still at the hardware level things you may have the finest programs in the world but there be no good unless they can be heard. There's the problem of coverage. One of my grad did graduate students at New York University has just completed a very important and illuminating study of educational broadcasting as it is. And I hope any B publish it in part so that you may study it in whole. This study makes quite clear that you do not as of this moment have the coverage necessary for a nationwide service of educational broadcasting. There are whole areas outside the coverage of your stations. There are significantly a number of stations large and small which are not so much as members of
N A B they're not within your phone. These are amendments that I suggest need your attention. You have got to have coffee. The only means of coverage is bringing into being or associating with you. The stations now operating the provide coverage but are not collaborating with you. Still elaborating on the obvious point fall you'll get nowhere in your services to the people at least in terms of our full fruition other than if you take account of a paramount necessity of action in the modern world and I speak of those mundane Wells promotion and publish City Hall as a sell 20 years ago Davis the record of the failure of educational broadcasting as it failed to make people aware of its services. He proved by research the thousands upon thousands of people would have been happy to hear programs then on the edge
of whose existence they were unaware. Promotion and publicity in this day of a bagel of voices is absolutely power. You've got to shop. I'm not given to shouting myself. But it's a necessity. Proposition number five and here I suggest that you're humble as well as realistic. The task as I have outlined it for you is far beyond your individual local resources also or for that matter beyond your collective local resources. This is a service to which most certainly each of you must contribute beyond your immediate a local service. But it's a service that requires a transcendent power. You're going to need I believe a central production unit of a network character staffed by the ablest writers directors and producers that you can lay hands on. And start about will by a strategist a man with a mind
whose mind and whose ideas are then transformed into the role material of programs by the ablest men that you can find to execute the job contributions by Phillips of course but with one reservation. I would counsel you and I speak with long experience in this matter who is truly like the devil and to be absolutely merciless with mediocrity. There's nothing that kills an audience quicker than one professional would accept nothing from me. Anybody your own affiliates included that has the touch of mediocrity. This is a job that needs more than good intentions and you know why that one of itself leads the way to hell is paved with good intentions. It's not good enough coverage of that horse is the keystone to the whole problem you have in your minds and in your work day in day not a day out. The love
of excellence. Remember Joshua Reynolds claim upon us that we observe how important it is that our minds should be attuned to excellence. And so far from being content to make these disciplines the habits of our youth only we should to the last moment of our lives continue a settled into a course where the old the true examples of grandeur. If you haven't got a level of excellence you don't belong in this business. It's the key to good programming and it's to keep perhaps more significantly to good audiences. I know nothing and I speak with experience of 12 years as a professional broadcaster. I know nothing that is no catch from an audience's point of view that excellence Excellence at the level of the trivial to the sublime. But it catches and even the sublime becomes the common property of man
as it touches the minds in the house at the deepest levels of communication without excellence your loss and excellence means that in the true sense you are professionals proposition number seven. Huge to the distinctive line of the distinctive properties of the radio medium confine yourselves to what radio can do. Now this is a big job. It's partly a job of retrieval. You have to retrieve the stolen property that is represented by a very large pot of what we call television today. Television in very large part and I've been a close observer of it for the Ford Foundation. Have you seen every program output of any team for two years now. And even in E.T. I can say this and it's true more so of the commercial broadcasters much of television is the illegitimate offspring the bastard
offspring of an illegitimate marriage. It's out of radio by film and it ain't television. You had stolen from your services that are properly yours. I can itemize some of these. I believe that you essentially except on occasion. There is a radio function I believe that news commentary is a radio function to which the visual components of television ads but nothing at all. Even though there's not much commentary anyhow on television the talk is obviously radio. But see that your talk as I live never got sick. Music is radio. Music is for the ear it is best heard with your eyes closed. Drama above all the radio drama is a distinctive art transcending in my judgment the whole of television dramatic production of which there is none except now on the TV but radio drama has the peculiar power that it
forces the exercise of your imagination as you create the stage and the scene of what is enacted in pure sound. Television is easy on the eye and thereby deprives you of the delight of being imaginatively associated with the creative process of the performance of a radio drama. Now let me get this straight. And again I speak from experience. Be aware in yourselves of that pettiness that resides in each and all of us. I'm speaking here of vanities of jealousies of concerns with jockeying for personal position of parochialism in establishing as a transcendent concern you all own little bailiwick over against the transcendent interest of the region of the nation. I speak of Fitton this in all its forms but embodied in that one word. The parochial outlook
fight it in yourselves. You may be petty princes but principalities are nothing well you know well that has bypassed the petty princes and is now something of the nature of at least at the intellectual level global imperialism. You have got to become imperialists and your concepts and your strategies and take a more humble and satisfactory path as contributors to a national strategy and an international strategy in which you subject yourselves to the disciplines of. But you constitute an army and an army is run by the loyal adherents of its lieutenants and captains to the strategic supervision and direction of a field marshal. This I believe to be immensely important. Sink your personal pride subject yourselves to the humble discipline of serving a great cause. In however humble a role and derive your satisfaction from the job well
done because it's got to be well done right down the line from the top and to the bottom of the last local program that is broadcast. This leads to proposition number 9 again is the obvious corollary. There is nothing undemocratic about leadership. You must recognize the absolute importance of leadership. The plain fact of life and of history is that the few who lead and the many follow recognize it for what it is. If you are dissatisfied with their leadership. Kick the rascals out. Find good news because in the leadership resides the hope and promise of the future. Find good men pay good men. Back to the money business. But it costs recognized the paramount role of leadership in this great enterprise and attach your loyalties to that leadership contributing
your own and prop up pot. And finally the most personal communication of all. And again the bromide the self evident fact the plain fact I've observed in all my life that no institution is better than its personnel. And the came to the personnel of the institution of educational broadcasting from which it will derive its strength and its inspiration of the people is the character and quality of mind and outlook of you individuals here. Now here I can talk not only at you but with you because you and I are here in the same boat. I for 25 years have been a teacher. You are in your own rights. Teachers your function essentially is teaching and within a year and a half of
retirement from this endeavor I have come to realize an important fact that by the standards that I have set myself I'm just not fit to teach. There is only one condition of even approximating lower role in function of a good teacher and that is to recognize the teaching is learning. And you know as teachers had better recognize that fact right now. If it isn't present in all minds in the sense that we you and I are like a man in the driver's seat of a very powerful car we know where we're headed. But let's face the fact that we won't move an inch if our gas tanks are empty. The condition of teaching is ending. You can't give out what you have not taken in your mines must be so stocked and so disciplined
that your thinking is commensurate with the vast scale of the operation with which Yoakum said. And there is no end to this process of intake. Teaching is learned. Studied the perfection of your own human skills of intelligence of grasp of character and of imagination because your job is never going to be better than yourselves. Study your own self. The proper study of mankind as pope said is man. And remember surely I can give not what men call love but Wilt thou accept not the worship the heart lifts above and the heavens reject not the desire of the mouth for the star of the night for the morrow. The devotion to something afar from the sphere of our sorrow. In other words hitch your wagon to a star. Perfect your skills. But remember that in this technological age mere
skill is a delusion and a deception. Be skillful. Be professional. But remember that first time lost those skills serve only the purpose of creating the mouthpiece for the ideas and concepts that you have to communicate that will make this world a better place. Do this and you will not only be a better man but the world of the job that you do will be of the better I feel being in it. Are new or new. Or no. Now you understand what kept me awake on the Saturday mornings at NYU some years ago.
One of the things that Professor sequin talked about was the need for us to think in global terms. And our next speaker will address himself primarily to those dimensions. Ralph Brant is the president of Radio New York worldwide which is the only commercial international broadcasting station in the United States beaming to over 100 million. It's funny that the same figure is used Charles beaming to over 100 million overseas radio receivers in Europe Africa. Latin America. Radio New York. Interestingly enough is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Mormon Church in Salt Lake City but it's operated as a commercial general interest radio station with news entertainment sports and advertising. Mr. Brando speaker has been president there since 1960. He's had a long career in a number of areas. He's been vice president of the systems matrix electronics company. Member of the board of directors of the Americas Foundation
which deals with the U.S. like American affairs trustee of the United States and American council Chairs of United States firms representing some 80 percent of U.S. investment and private enterprise in Latin America a member of the program committee of the IRA T.S. the International Radio and Television Society. Among other things he has contributed many articles and such trade journals as broadcasting and sponsor magazine. One of the nicest things I think that's happened in our young adventure in NE OUR was a conversation that dialogue I should say if I may use that current word which was begun last winter with Mr. Brant and with his able colleague Mr. Kraus here in the front row and we got to talking about ways in which national educational radio and radio New York worldwide perhaps had some common interests and how could we translate some of this into action.
And it was appropriately that not enough at the parchment terrace international convocation on the requirements for peace last February in New York City. That's never all of us sat around the table instead. You know in about six months or so there's going to be a national election over in Germany. Why don't we do a live network coverage of that and we all agreed as we ate our lunch that day that I would be a fine idea. And so we did. And that's the most over simplified version of the most complex operation been in our short history that one could imagine. But one of the men who made it possible and not only made it possible but inspired our work at times when it seemed impossible for lack of funds for lack of. Existing coordinating points and so on was the man about to address you now. It's a joy to know that we are dealing with the colleagues like this. Here we have a commercial organization which actually sounds much more like an any art kind
of operation every time we talk in so many ways in terms of the things they are trying to accomplish. And it wasn't too many weeks ago that I was in Ralph Browns office and we were talking about national educational radio and some of his dreams on the international level. He made such a good speech that I insisted that he come and give it to you here today. Well first thank you and Elaine I wish I could remember the speech. Jerry has given you some of my professional credentials. I wonder if I could be pardoned. A few other comments as to who I am and where I come from because I think it's important that you understand who I am as a person. For this I need to refer to two grandfathers one of whom was a circuit rider in the Middle West who preached some 12 sermons a day and the other was an educator who was a supervisor of schools in New
Jersey. So you find before you a combination evangelist educator broadcaster now thrown before a group of educational broadcasters whose sympathies I share whose problems I do not understand but hope that my organization may be able to make some contribution to who is now involved in world broadcasting for the past five years. If you think you should use it if you think you have problems here in the United States you should tackle some of ours in trying to broadcast independently to the world and to do a job. I think Mr. Shea owns an article in the East Saturday Review of which there seem to be a lot of reprints or and made some statements that I'd like to repeat at this point. Mr. Sharon said the NE are people referring to the German election broadcast which we were in part responsible for were thus able to realize their long dream of an
interconnected live network with a lift of this adventure behind the educational radio broadcasters have new confidence and hope. Seven European nations have indicated willingness to cooperate with any are in future international broadcasting provided there is a live American network available to furnish immediacy of impact. Radio New York World Wide is prepared to lend its facilities. The original question remains however who will pay for it. Even if a way is found to finance occasional international broadcasts the whole point of any RS enterprising coverage of the German elections will be lost unless there is a successful drive to create a permanent national live educational radio network. The contribution would be incalculable. I would like to take a little further and say that I think that we live now in Iran a unique moment in history. It's not just a unique
moment for our nation it's a unique moment for the world. I'm a little bit awed by this and I hope you are too. We live at that particular moment in history where it is possible for every man everywhere to know what is going on to any man anywhere. We have satellites before us. We don't know what we're going to put through them. We don't know how they're going to be handled. We don't know who are going to be the authorized users. The American Broadcasting Company has suggested a Don't mistake satellite with an educational channel. I'm sure most of the emphasis on that is toward television at the moment. But those of us involved in radio know that there are tremendous opportunities in the international as well as the domestic satellite for us to take advantage of as I think back over twenty six years of commercial broadcasting in the United States I think I can
recognize rather dimly what radio has done in the United States. I like to think that some 30 35 years ago this country was less a country. Then it is today because radio came along to make it more of a country. We hear programs from one corner of this nation to the other corner of the nation. We hear regional accents breaking down. We hear regional viewpoints breaking down and radio to a great degree has done this. We cross freely between borders of our own states. Our news our information our entertainment our service features our sports all across these borders. Have we done this successfully yet internationally. Let's look at the area in which the station I operate is situated shortwave frequencies were originally allocated
to promote understanding between nations to provide for a cross-fertilisation of culture. Is there anyone who has listened to shortwave who's in this room today who has listened within the past week or really believes that this is happening or are you listening to a battleground of the Cold War instead. How do we ensure that the same thing does not happen in the future of broadcasting between countries. I don't we make sure that the satellites are used for the purposes that were outlined for sure way. I don't we make sure that it isn't just a question of promoting red communism or democracy or whatever you want to call this this fight that's going on. How do we make sure that the great resources of your minds as teachers of your stations are interchange freely across this world. And we're here in the United States with some of the greatest facilities in the world.
You represent radio stations which are situated on campuses across the United States. You are pouring out of those transmitters information education culture. How can we ensure together we as the only independent commercial broadcasting system in the United States and US national educational radio broadcasters. How do we ensure that this can happen. How do we draw on your resources how does my organization draw on your resources. How does your organization draw on our resources. We find as we research our audience that the greatest group of listeners we have arced is students surprisingly enough people who are curious about the world around them. We try to satisfy them. I'm sure we can satisfy the much more if we could draw on the resources you had the minds you had. The courses you have your
desire to to provide a free education to people no matter whether they can enter your classrooms or whether they're listening to a radio in their own home or in their own car. The programs for which originate with your stations. I don't think there's any doubt about the fact that the hotline between the White House and the Kremlin has from time to time been able to overcome certain under misunderstandings. How do we create a hotline between us and every individual in the world. For understand for instant communication now if I continue to ask questions is because I really don't have the answers either. You and I have tools. Dr Sigman has put before us this morning some of the goals and some of the methods we must use and I think any single one of us has the answers. But we must continue to grope for these answers.
I don't think it's any exaggeration to say that the country and after all your program does a national educational broadcasting and the national purpose. I don't think it's any exaggeration to say that the country which uses radio and television most effectively for education in the next 10 to 15 years there's a new generation grows that will be the most influential country in the world not just for its own national purpose by the way the major country which can educate its new population. Best and by these means by broadcasting means because we all know how. What a shortage there is of teachers what a shortage there is of money to build schools not only in our own country but I just returned from a trip to Brazil where there's a great there's a great recognition in the conference I attended which was a conference of
all the broadcasters of Latin America that these tools must be used for education. How can we create with these tools the best educated group in the world. And then how can we extend that our free search for enlightenment and understanding to other areas of the world. Perhaps this is one of the big ideas is the Dr. Siegman is talking about not just to confine what we are doing to our own country because the tools are here for us to extend it to other areas of the world. I do. Leave this country has the best opportunity to extend it to other areas of the world not just because of technical reasons but because of the type of people who run and administer our educational institutions. Can we prove that this free inquiry which goes on in your educational institutions can survive on limited exposure to the world. Is this
not the greatest demonstration of the society in which we live. We have a program in New York City as well as around the world that it might give you a clue as to part of what I'm talking about. I have a feeling that educational programs had darn well better be exciting and entertaining as well as educational. We're doing a two hour program in conjunction with W NBC in New York. They have done many such programs on the air where a listener can call in and ask any question. Engage in any discussion he wishes no Many of the subjects are trivial No question about this but some of them are quite enlightening. The man who does this program is Brad Crandall. We went to W. and DC and said How would you like to talk to people around the world. So WMD seized 50000 what transmitters in New York City in our 50000 watt transmitters in Boston are linked together and collect telephone calls come in from anywhere in the
world. This is a demonstration of a free interchange of ideas. Can this not be applied to educational broadcast. Can we put on programs where listeners will call in and ask whoever is doing the program. A question on the spot. Can we demonstrate that there is no question that can't be asked but many can't be answered but this is a demonstration again of not only our free society our free educational system but our free communications system. We have the greatest radio and television facilities in the world but I fear we are not using them to the degree that other countries are for the educational process. I've been doing a lot of reading about what's going on in other countries. In education by means of broadcasting. I do not think we are doing the job in this country which has the best tools of all post at both educational facilities and communications facilities that could be done
if we put our minds to it. I think our major dilemma in our free society is to demonstrate not only we can put on educational programs but the people will listen when we do. And I want to thank Dr. Siegman for reminding you and reminding me that we must promote these programs. We must merchandise these programs we must advertise these programs. What good does it do any of us to know that we've just done a hell of a half an hour on a particular subject which is close to our hearts when nobody listens. The German election has provided a dramatic event in some areas of the country they were advertised and we hope that more people did listen to this demonstration of a free election going on in another country of the world. I think we've got to utilize the principles of a good
advertisement in our educational broadcasting whether it's nationally or internationally. The first thing we must do is attract attention. Second thing we must do is to put across a believable proposition. And third and most important of all we must have a call for action in every one of these programs. Small ideas are there any rewards for your listeners other than just taking notes. Is there some sort of a certificate. Could I be crass enough to suggest there might even be a prize for the person who does the best essay based on the program and perhaps many of you are doing this and if so please pardon my ignorance. I can't know everything is going on in educational broadcasting in this country. But I can tell you this that we must create programs which excite in order to enlighten programs which are not simply an extension of the classroom programs in which people talk
back programs in which we create a dialogue with the community. Programs which can be promoted to their audience and therefore programs which will be supported financially. We do live at a unique moment in history where it is possible for every man everywhere to know what goes on to any man anywhere. I hope to gether Radio New York worldwide and any R can fulfill that promise. Thank you. Thank you a new. New. Thank you of our final speaker this morning. It's been pretty busy in a variety of endeavors for a number of years. Any one of us in this room who heard the program some years ago you are
there on CBS Radio. I can't thank this gentleman for creating and producing it and directing it. And Lord only knows what else to make that possible. He's done a number of other things over the years. One of the things he busies himself as the Radio TV critic of the Saturday Review a position that he's held since 1950. He's been connected with such programs as the whole town's Talking been involved in many many things which have been groundbreakers attention getters in 1952 or thereabouts at the bureau ITV. He was involved with the Ford Foundation experiments in the use of educational TV in the promotion of grassroots democracy. He was the writer of the ABC television documentary Meet comrade student in 1962 dealing with the Soviet educational system. The first time incidentally that American
film crew for a network was allowed into Russia. So again he set still another precedent he enjoys precedence and he said quite a few of them in his time. But that doesn't satisfy this man with this curious mind because he is also a professor of communications at the Annenberg School of Communication the University of Pennsylvania. But even that busy schedule and the Saturday Review and so on still doesn't stop him because he's currently involved as the writer of a group w Westinghouse series TV series on The Bill of Rights and several other series of The American Heritage. The history of World War 2. Ensured. He experience his lawn and his future work I am sure is even longer. His articles have been most stimulating including some rather recent ones that we have particularly enjoyed reading. So without further ado Will the real Will the real Robert Louis Champney stand up
to in the interest. Thank you Gerald. Ladies and gentlemen I had the privilege of listening to the general semanticists and editor of the magazine etc. Recently as I hired a Kala talk and he was talking about the negro self image in American life as modified by television. He said quoting I think James Baldwin who gave an account of his early childhood that when a Negro boy would be discriminated against he would run back to his home and seek the restoration of his self-confidence from his parents and more often than not he would not find it because his father would say. What the White boys are saying about you is
true you are inferior. By contrast on the west coast of this country in the Chinese ghettos when the Chinese youngster felt the same discrimination and he came home to his father the father would give him the restoration of his self-confidence. He would say Never mind what they say about you. You have an identity. You have a purpose. Stick to it and someday we'll buy them out. Head up which the Chinese youngsters did when they grew up on the West Coast. Ever since I knew anything about educational radio it has been suffering from an identity crisis. Today the question put to you by Gerald Sandler is no different than the question put to
your colleagues 40 years ago. Who are we. Why are we here. What is up. I want to be a Chinese father conventions offer the purpose of restoring wounded self images. Duck to seek has as usual inspired us with global strategies and the pursuit of excellence. The gentleman from New York Radio Worldwide has pleaded with you to cooperate in a hotline of togetherness. All of these strategical and methodological considerations are admirable but they do not go to the heart of your identity crisis. Someone has to deal with it. I am normal qualified than anyone else in this room
but since this is a basic conference addressing itself to the problem of what is our image to the American people what is our relationship to the national purpose. I'm going to go way out and attempt the impossible if not the difficult. As Dr C MN has told us and as all of us know and I review it briefly simply as a preface. Great and exhilarating changes are pressing on the problems multiplying at every stage of national international and sub national levels. What is at stake cross cultural lines namely the concept of human dignity. This is a goal of all cultures East and West upon which men of goodwill have agreed. Now we know that human institutions are not always serve this goal Well the demand of the time is that human
institutions be harmonized with this concept of human dignity. How are we to do this. The press of the Times is in the direction of comprehensive maps of logic currents of self-awareness of integrated activities and insights are universal identities. Now what has been said to you up to now could very easily have been said in the same room under the aegis of educational television broadcast except for Dr. Stevens admonition that you should distinctively radio we've been talking about broadcasting goals and purposes that may be applied to any form of electronic communication. But radio does have a distinctive property that can be reconciled affirmatively with this integrative concept and it comes to us suggested by Marshall McLuhan whose ambiguities do
not veil the seminal insights which he produces a times. Radio is integrative. It does pull people together. Print on the other hand if we follow McLuhan and others is fragmenting specialist It's the tumult of the typographic man. Now educators have traditionally been book in print minded and educational radio I submit has reflected this bias of compartmentalization programmes have been characterized by specialist separation education versus entertain false dichotomy public affairs versus the arts. False dichotomy. Historical literary musical scientific categories. What is needed is a
fundamental clarification clarification of goals. Which will integrate these compartmentalize worlds which education occupies not. I submit for an educated minority as an alternative to commercial broadcasting. Now to alternative philosophies at best only sustain minorities but they emphasize and reinforce separation they produce alienation frustration even withdrawal and rebellion amongst educated minorities. Anger at the majority and the total population is robbed of the talents of these leaders. I think radio is opportunity now as it always has been should be to aim at the total population with a basic dominating concept of integrated programming. Now the German elections were not a successful broadcast because it was live and it was interconnected. There was a deeper significance. The German election broadcast
was successful because it did to this basic line of being integrative market. It was a three hour program attempting to comprehend in a wider sweep than usual in depth and perspective what was happening in German democracy. It showed the common features of German elections when compared to Americans it integrated the planning and production of Sandler and Kraus and the Germans. It forced them to work together. Now everywhere opportunities are provided for worldwide cooperation in the future. But national opportunities exist also in terms of this integrative principle. For example they could be educational radio was the only organization that is able to do this. National feedback shows on a monthly or even a semi annual basis based on great
integrating comprehensive concepts and I borrow from her last well the political scientist who has aggressed himself must imaginatively to this integrating concept of a human terrain. He suggests that before Congress meets at the beginning of the year when the mood is for the new for the innovative. That there might be pre-election legislatures comprised of representatives of the people. Why couldn't educational radio putting together a network do any big comprehensive special broadcast addressing itself to the issues which Congress will face and the range not just for the bigwigs to talk to the people but for feedbacks from the people back to the leaders in the fashion of the CBS national drivers test which was based on the Chicago experiments in feedback broadcasting. The purpose being to provide comprehensive
maps Laswell suggests a social planetarium in which political scientists can have before them spread out as in a geographical and astronomical Planetarium. The past history of an event and an idea its trends its conditions its projections into the future decisions seminars in which the people become involved at all levels. Quantifying goals and indicating what the directions and alternatives are. There are larger issues which could be considered such national feeback comprehensive programs automation take the space program for instance. I noticed. This morning's paper asked that a Gallup poll shows that the American people have their doubts about the space program. Forty five percent of a nationwide sample said the space program was worth four billion a year and forty two percent said it wasn't worth it. That's a
pretty even split. Think of the opportunities inherent in this kind of an integrated broadcast dealing with space and opportunity to involve astronomers political scientists with ordinary people to consider life in space such questions as our machines to be accorded human dignity. What happens when we meet superior films of life in our space exploration in a sense. We will begin the integration of our consciousness with a cosmic process. This integration can be done regionally and of course locally. I never could understand why educational broadcasting did not follow up the pioneering work done at Ames when we did the whole towns talking in which the people at all levels of the community were involved in insight and understanding and symbolic decision making on their local problems. And I'm not speaking now of just involving the middle classes in the educationally elite.
I'm speaking of the large untapped resources in the great metropolitan ghettos. Think of the problems that our libraries and have are having today built in large cities for the middle class and other middle classes fled them to the suburbs and they have there are the books in the great biblio temples and there are the lower classes quotes who do not have the courage or the willingness to enter these strange temples of the middle class. How do you involve them in integrative conceptualize. Phil you must recognize the flow. The old beasts and I don't think educational radio does this especial single Joe report on radio. Nine thousand sixty four said that the radio audience consisted of 80 million people a day and another charting hour about our show that the radio audience starts at 27 millions tuned in during
the 6 to 7 a.m. period. M. goes to forty point four million between 7:00 and 8:00 a.m. peaks at forty two point million during the 8 to 9 a.m. span wearies educational radio at this hour from 10:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. It ranges from 31 million to 35 million. It dips to the 20 million until further PM rises briefly for the homeward traffic peak and during the evening when most of educational radio is on the air. It is in the teens settling down to a modest 10 million at the midnight period. The hours that the American people have had bitter waited to listen to radio do not seem to coincide with the hours that you are addressing. Why not a comprehensive map of broadcasting. Why not a study of the medium of the institution in public such a scrawny a dead man in his book Television Society. No other institution is subjecting broadcasting in this
country to critical scrutiny today. Why can't educational radio make it. It's part job. Present the conditions the history the trends the possible alternatives to criticism on the air not only aesthetic but moral light up the FCC. The Congressional lobbies involve the plain people in your discussion while Annenberg I have been astonished that even students at a graduate level are ignorant of the fundamental facts of the institution of broadcasting in this country. Think of one of the people with a full mustache. Of course you run into opposition you'll be attacking the power structure but you might as well do it because if you don't no one else will do it and you will get nowhere. Skimming around on the surface of the institution of broadcasting you might even go way out and redesign the spectrum of material with which radio deals could last wells a value scheme. Power wealth well-being
rectitude justice affection respect enlightenment. Then he contends are the biggest values that move or people we individually have different priorities. But it's useful for us to understand these values and our own hierarchies of values. Now instead of educational broadcasting dividing up the spectrum of human knowledge and activity in terms of history literature art music why not new daring redesigns of the spectrum of information dealing with these values illuminated wealth in today's society in human power in today's society and do the same for the for the concept of of well-being and rectitude. It opens up experimentally a new dazzling area of programming material which is fresh. In order to do this radio must first do all redesign its own self image. You must cease being competitors as doctors seek been said. TV versus radio instructional vs. cultural and stop trying to be
specialists recapture the universal view which prevailed in the oral cultures and in the medieval cultures which we lost perhaps in the age of typographic man and of industrialization. Try to work on you in cross discipline teams tie in with your university specialists in list the social scientists the anthropologists don't just put them on the air and have them talk involve them in planning of programmes in advance. Do research in terms of this interdisciplinary approach study the effectiveness of integrating programmes to people really see things whole as a result of these integrated programmes. Modify your assumptions as a result of the research you do after the programmes. It's a new kind of research involving the artist in the social scientist. It's very difficult to come by Believe me because the criminal forces are there pulling these specialists apart at all times.
And it takes a special kind of person not a law fitted to this new integrative role. Some would like to do it but are mentally incapable of. You list only those who have doxy been suggested can blend their own self images with a larger whole. I see that you raise this kind of a model cross-disciplinary generalist in nature integrative and you will attract a new breed of people coming into educational radio and you certainly need to make the young aware of the future of integrative necessity. The result could be that a new image of educational radio will emerge. You will stand for something in the public mind. What do you stand for today. They will know what you will and perhaps they will be willing to support you because they can see the relevance of what you offer to their own universalizing lives in the modern world. You will truly become a national resource because you will be the map makers of education.
Such kind of activity is worth supporting for with enlightenment comes wealth and power and even affection. And then the acid test will come because if you succeed as integrate is can you resist the specialised development of your own egos with egos which will disintegrate the patter. All this is a dream a long way off subtly but that's what I've attempted to do to dream for all of us become generalists have self-confidence as the Chinese youngsters don't offer yourself cheaply to the American public. Your literature is full of statements. We can do it more cheaply than anybody else we don't cost much. It's Dr. Slepian said Think in terms of a hundred million dollars and if you're worth it. The pragmatically minded American people will give it to you know what they're giving the space program. Come onstage with a point of view. Use more than catch words and key phrases
that people sense that they need in Gratian today on a metaphysical on a spiritual on a geographical on a cosmic level. And if you provide the leadership in this direction you will be in tune with the temper of the times. Know who you are why you are and what you are about. Stick to your purpose and as the Chinese father said you will buy them out. Thank you Allan. New. We are running very close to the noon hour but before everyone leaves two things first. I know from just looking out at the sea of faces here for those of you who can and want to we will entertain in just one moment five minutes for any interchange on a cosmic level or otherwise from the
other side of this podium. But first two short announcements one I meant to mention this at the beginning of the session. Mr. Leslie pound for us the president of the Johnson Foundation had every intention of personally being here today to hear these presentations. Some rather cosmic. Situations internally within the Johnson Foundation's own plans prevented him from being here today and he does send all of us is best wishes for the continued success on this road towards a national conference for educational radio. The second thing is that I am told that the announcement made by Mr Harley at the opening session this morning with reference to division luncheons was slightly inaccurate. We need to know by approximately noon that is I need to tell them how many luncheon tickets for the NDR luncheon definitely will be taken so I would like at the moment to get a rough show of hands of those who
have not purchased tickets to the NRA lodge and I don't I don't want to see the hands of those of you early Conversely who have how many in this room who have not purchased any or luncheon tickets for tomorrow were Father John Polk and speaks on the rather metaphysical topic alligators of the airwaves and the toastmaster is Jack Summerfield of the RV R.. How many of you are planning to get tickets to that event. I need to know this almost immediately. Thank you. All right the floor is open for an integrated approach to the problem yes or no to the real life. OH YEAH OH OH OH OH OH OH OH OH OH. Oh
we're what we are here Oh boy all of us a list of reasons why the world could I say one word to this and perhaps the rest of you gentlemen would like. The point is well taken. And as a matter of fact in Mr. Sharon's article I think he. He addresses himself to this very problem in many ways although not in subject matter terms but in economic terms. The reason the German national elections were chosen as you say for our first live national interconnected network after 40 years of educational radio in this country is because it's the first time in the only time it has ever been made economically feasible for us to attempt it. It was not at the top of any list. It was pragmatically possible. And so we did what was possible at that time. There are many many other subjects of course that we must attack but we cannot do it in a vacuum. It
is rather ironic. And again Mr. Shand pointed this out in his article that had the German Information Center of New York City certainly with an axe to grind their job is to present to the American people whatever it is the Federal Republic of Germany is trying to say to the world. If they had not come through with the interconnection money that broadcast would not have been possible. Right now today I mean today November 1st one thousand sixty five. Some of the people in this room already know that we are in the midst of trying to get our Second Life Network presentation which hopefully in some possibly abbreviated form will take place one week from tonight November 8th. It also will be an election. The Canadian national election it too will be chosen because among other things another government is making it possible for us to do just that. Not because we are pro Canadian or pro German. They care to add to it.
Does that answer your question so much. You're right but just yesterday while 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
0 0. 0 the integration process continues. For what. Well you're right. Oh that's right. Well one way. To implement
that being the consensus and consensus consensus is another popular word in Washington's dialogue these days. The thrust of my final remarks will be addressed to a rather viable program and that is to remind you of some of the other Any our activities taking place today tomorrow and Wednesday at 12:15 the any are in school broadcasters Committee is meeting for a lunch meeting in the town restaurant downstairs and any of you who are particularly interested are invited to come Steve all I recorded for the session is chairman of the committee. I know he'd be interested in having you there this afternoon. 315 in the Frederick room there will be a session on academic freedom in broadcasting and I promise you another thought provoking session this evening at 8 o'clock in the Frederick room there will be recorded highlights of the German national election coverage where it will be quite appropriate I think to
talk about some of these things in some detail there been a number of people have come to me and said they didn't have an opportunity to hear it. Well there will be an opportunity tonight will be an opportunity to talk back on a feed back program perhaps but then tomorrow of course being the closest thing to this year's divison day it will be the any our luncheon again at 12:00 noon the father called in as our speaker on alligators on the airwaves. And immediately following that luncheon and I do urge all of you to attend. It will be a very important business meeting at which we will review in considerable detail the various activities of any r on your behalf during this first crucial year of this reorganization including your executive directors first annual report. And we have promised that there will be a minimum of an hour and a half's open discussion time available for everyone there. So there will be this is an important forum that takes place tomorrow afternoon. We do urge you to come. That will be tomorrow afternoon in the continental room which is
right off the main lobby. I know this hotel is is one of the sprawling affairs but the continental room is actually right close to the registration desk almost opposite there. Then tomorrow is it tomorrow morning Dick where you have your committee breakfast tomorrow morning at 8:00 a.m. The NEA our program advisory committee affectionately known as nerd PAC will have its breakfast meeting and I must say in a very civilized way because I notice also that there are other breakfast meetings at 7:30. My hat is off to you Mr. Clean for picking a much more civilized time. And then on Wednesday I call your attention in particular. To a session in the morning at 10:15 in the Alexandria room chaired by John Witherspoon the director of the ECI US project educational communication system on interconnection and networking. The subject of course that we're all vitally interested in. That too should be an extremely
important session. Finally I would call your attention Wednesday afternoon to a number of things that are taking place. You can't be at all of these places but many of them touch on your vital concerns from two to three there are three concurrent sessions all three of which I think affect all of us here. Copyright a survey of international educational broadcasting and activities and educational broadcasting for the National Defense Education Act to be followed by the final general session on public affairs programming. Now I've just skimmed over lightly some of those sessions that I thought would be of particular interest to those of you who haven't had a chance to study the program. Yes or no. We will have transcripts made from this session this entire session has been recorded. Whether they will be put in the form immediately of transcripts or whether we can get this out in some published form. Oh this is something yet to be determined. Part of my responsibility here this morning is in terms of this project under the Johnson
Foundation and we've got to work out just some of the logistics but I think I could answer you generally at some point in history very soon I hope this will be available in printed form that that will be done if there is no other business before the floor. Our thanks to the panel and thank you very much less than an anal. Or. Oral Hooray. Oh my. God I hope. You're here other than you know your English that I say really.
- Contributing Organization
- University of Maryland (College Park, Maryland)
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- Description
- Description
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- Date
- 1965-11-01
- Topics
- Environment
- Public Affairs
- Media type
- Sound
- Duration
- 01:21:47
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University of Maryland
Identifier: 4351 (University of Maryland)
Format: 1/4 inch audio tape
Duration: 00:30:00?
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- Citations
- Chicago: “1965 National Association of Educational Broadcasters Convention; Concurrent Special Interest Session: National Conference on Educational Radio,” 1965-11-01, University of Maryland, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC, accessed October 31, 2024, http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-500-154ds32h.
- MLA: “1965 National Association of Educational Broadcasters Convention; Concurrent Special Interest Session: National Conference on Educational Radio.” 1965-11-01. University of Maryland, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Web. October 31, 2024. <http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-500-154ds32h>.
- APA: 1965 National Association of Educational Broadcasters Convention; Concurrent Special Interest Session: National Conference on Educational Radio. Boston, MA: University of Maryland, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Retrieved from http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-500-154ds32h