In memoriam: Newton Minow had 97 years of amazing, influential and ever-curious life

Newton Minow, the former Federal Communications Commission chairman, inside his Chicago residence near Lake Shore Drive in 2017.

At the dinner honoring Burns on Friday, he was with his daughter Mary, and had invited as his guests Mike Leonard and his wife Cathy. In the wake of Minow’s death, major newspapers and other media outlets offered the highlights of his long career, most focusing on his short tenure as head of the Federal Communications Commission during the Kennedy administration and his famous assessment of television as a “vast wasteland.” In typical Minow fashion, he always credited his friend and sometimes collaborator, writer John Bartlow Martin, with inspiring that famous phrase.

His office too was like a museum, on the 24th floor of a building in the heart of the Loop, with striking views of the city in all its skyscraping vigor. His desk was filled with the work he did for the law firm Sidley Austin. There was a prominent photo with his wife, Jo , and their three daughters, Nell, Martha and Mary, standing with JFK in the Oval Office.

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In His Own Words, the Life and Work of Newton Minow: ‘Ideas Last Longer Than People’Newton Minow may have done more to improve the quality of television in the United States than any other person. “I saw using this medium certainly for entertainment, but also for education in the large sense, for stimulation, for ... I would hope, inspiration,” he said.
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