Media Archives | What It Means to Be American

Why Color TV Was the Quintessential Cold War Machine

The Technological Innovation Transformed How Americans Saw the World, and How the World Viewed America

by Susan Murray
January 24, 2019

In 1959, at the height of the space race, Vice President Richard Nixon and Soviet Premier Nikita Krushchev stood together, surrounded by reporters, in the middle of RCA’s color television display at the American National Exhibition in Moscow. Nixon, speaking to Krushchev through a translator, pointed proudly to the television camera before them and addressed the technological competition between the two nations that the leaders had just been debating. “There are some instances where you may be ahead of us, …

Would Brits Really Rather Watch Fussy Old Lord Grantham Than a Dashing Winston Churchill?

The Producers of 'Downton Abbey’ Want to Tell the Wartime Prime Minister's Riveting Backstory, but a Half Century of Disparagement May Have Taken Its Toll

By Michael Shelden
March 11, 2016

If you were disappointed to see Downton Abbey come to an end on PBS this past weekend, the good news is that the producers of this sensation on both sides of the Atlantic have optioned the rights to another series featuring an even more dazzling cast of Edwardian English aristocrats.

In this one, the characters are all drawn from real life. There is a fabulously wealthy heiress, a beautiful actress, a boyish cad married to a woman almost twice his …

The Great TV Debates That Forever Changed How Politics Was Covered

When ABC Brought William F. Buckley, Jr., and Gore Vidal Together, the Media Became More Interested in Heat Than Light

By George Merlis
December 1, 2015

In our defense, we were a bit desperate. It was 1968 and ABC News was starved for resources and significantly smaller than its rivals NBC and CBS. We had to do something, anything, to get noticed. I should know: I was ABC News’ director of public relations.

As the presidential nominating conventions loomed that year (Miami Beach for Republicans, Chicago for Democrats) ABC News executives came up with the novel idea of a nightly 90-minute highlight show instead of providing the …

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