The Vanishing Vision The Inside Story of Public Television

Reviews

"A monumental achievement. He has written a comprehensive history of public broadcasting that reads like a 'who done it.' Sometimes a detached observer and sometimes a key participant, Day provides the reader with a riveting account of the events, the heroes, the villains and bit players that make up the compelling and complex story of public broadcasting."—Joan Ganz Cooney, Chairman, Executive Committee, Children's Television Workshop "A lively, highly readable, important account of the idealists, bumblers, bureaucrats, well-meaning incompetents, and dedicated souls who built America's flawed and perpetually endangered public television system. James Day is one of the giants of public television's not-so-distant early days, and he provides a knowing, fascinating, and intelligent history of the little television system that has tried to be everything to everybody, has satisfied practically nobody, was built on a foundation of no visible means of financial support, and is more desperately needed now than ever."—Lawrence K. Grossman, former president of PBS and NBC News and author of The Electronic Republic "James Day's fascinating history of public television is the very best way I know of to understand that glorious, complicated, frustrating, and utterly American institution. It comes at a time when PBS is facing its greatest challenges and could well be the reference guide as public television approaches the millennium."—Ken Burns, producer of "The Civil War" and "Baseball" "The long, unfinished struggle to create—against daunting odds—an alternative television not tethered to market forces is James Day's theme in this sweeping chronicle. This story—one of achievement eroded by internal dissention but, more significantly, by political log-rolling and chicanery—needs to be told, and Day does so with panache."—Erik Barnouw, author of Tube of Plenty