Television

<p><span class="deck"> <span class="typestyle"> A noted historian argues that television, a relative newcomer, has nearly destroyed old—and valuable—political traditions</span> </span></p>

<p><span class="deck">A little-known ancestor of the nightly news comes to light</span></p>

<p><span class="deck">Robert Benchley, a woebegone chronicler of his own inadequacies, was the humorist’s humorist, a man beloved by practically everyone but himself.</span></p>

<p><span class="deck">The dour radio comedian regarded his work as totally ephemeral, but a new generation of comics has built upon his foundations</span></p>

<p><span class="deck">The early critics of television predicted that the new medium would make Americans passively obedient to the powers-that-be. But they badly underestimated us.</span></p>

<p>Stempel’s winning technique was simplicity itself: He got all the questions in advance.</p>

<p><span class="deck">Ken Burns, the maker of a fine new documentary on the Civil War tells how the medium of film can evoke the emotional reality of history.</span></p>

<p><span class="deck">In the infancy of television (but not of American royalty-worship), the networks fought their first all-out battle for supremacy over who would get to show Queen Elizabeth II being crowned.</span></p>

<p><span class="deck">An Interview with Walter Cronkite</span></p>

<p><span class="deck">The imperium of modern television advertising was born in desperate improvisation.</span></p>

<p><span class="deck">What you <span class="typestyle"> don’t</span> remember about the day JFK was shot </span></p>

<p><span class="deck">IT’S ALMOST IMPOSSIBLE TO TELL OUR NATIONAL STORY ON TELEVISION, EVEN IF YOU’VE GOT 13 HOURS AT YOUR DISPOSAL. THREE PEOPLE WHO DID IT EXPLAIN HOW AND WHY.</span></p>

<p><span class="deck">How luck, television, and a saintly lurker on the Internet combined to let the author visit 1953 for half an hour.</span></p>