Article September 1, 2013

Television

Donald Mainwaring

Originally published in the March 8, 1963 issue of The Christian Science Monitor

Television viewers in the United States, and those in several other countries, can daily witness commercial television's perpetration of the yet-unlisted crime of cultural fraud.

On the surface things appear no worse, if no better, than they might be. So far sexual titillation and violence appear to have been kept this side of the border at which public acceptance ceases and unproﬁtable protest begins. There are attempts, mainly by producers in the area of public affairs, to consider such matters as honesty, chastity, and general social behavior. Sponsor and citizen pressures generally insist upon a stricter standard of decency in dress and speech on television than on stage or ﬁlm.

But these pressures also help the production of programs to which moral content has been added clumsily and preachily.

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