We have President Reagan and vice president Mondale in front of the camera and someone like Barbara Walters says first question for you Mr. President is: "what do you think is the solution to the problem in the Middle East?" you will have two minutes to answer after which vice president Mondale will have 60 seconds for rebuttal.

Now, who can take that seriously? If Reagan and Mondale were serious men in fact, they would turn to Miss Walters and say "What kind of men do you think we are? We're running for the highest office in the land! You can't answer a question like this in two minutes, nor can you rebut someone else's answer in 60 seconds!" or they might turn to Miss Walters and say "What kind of people do you think the American public is that they will put up with a forum in which candidates for the presidency are asked to respond to a question like this in two minutes and or one minute?"

But in fact, none of that ever happens. Reagan does answer and Mondale does give his rebuttal and everyone goes on with this charade that television is informing the public

When radio first came on the scene and such a conservative observers is Herbert Hoover who was Secretary of Commerce when the radio act was first passed didn't believe that it was possible that radio could be used for commercial purposes. He saw it as strictly an educational medium.

How serious can a flood in Mexico be or an earthquake in in Japan if it is preceded by a Calvin Klein's jeans commercial and followed by a yogurt commercial? I mean that fact in itself so changes the content of what passes for news that I find it an embarrassment to the very idea of an informed public.

A way television is quite unprecedented in that in the past audiences were gathered for specific reasons to hear speeches or even to see specific events but television doesn't do that its job is to gather an audience and it doesn't really much care uh what it uses as the means to gather an audience