luck

(I take no credit)

And if there are any historians about fifty or one hundred years from now,
and there should be preserved the kinescopes of one week
of all three networks, they will there find recorded
in black and white, and in color evidence of decadence, escapism,
and insulation from the realities of the world in which we live.
We are currently wealthy, fat, comfortable, and complacent.
We have a built-in allergy to unpleasant or disturbing information.
Our mass media reflect this.
But unless we get up off our fat surpluses
and recognize that television in the main
is being used to distract, delude, amuse, and insulate us,
then television and those who finance it,
those who look at it and those who work at it,
may see a totally different picture
too late.

[I]f they are right, and this instrument is good for nothing but to entertain, amuse and insulate, then the tube is flickering now and we will soon see that the whole struggle is lost. This instrument can teach, it can illuminate, yes, and it can even inspire. But it can do so only to the extent that humans are determined to use it to those ends. Otherwise it is merely wires and lights in a box.