MINOW, NEWTON NORMAN

MINOW, NEWTON NORMAN (1926– ), U.S. lawyer and public official. Born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Minow served in the U.S. Army in 1944–46. He graduated from Northwestern Law School and was admitted to the Wisconsin and the Illinois Bar in 1950. He served as law clerk to U.S. Supreme Chief Justice Fred M. Vinson (1951–52), and as administrative assistant to Governor Adlai Stevenson of Illinois (1952–53). He was a member of Stevenson's campaign staff during the latter's two attempts for the presidency (1952 and 1956), and was also a partner in two Stevenson law firms (1955–57 and 1957–61). In 1961 President John F. Kennedy appointed Minow chairman of the Federal Communications Commission. Minow caused a furor within the television industry soon after becoming chairman by describing most of its programming as a "vast wasteland." His conception that the FCC should oversee the networks and protect the public interest brought industry charges of government censorship and interference, but resulted in congressional legislation to assist educational television, the passage of the Communications Satellite Bill (1962), and an attempt to vary and enlarge the area of television programming by enabling new channels to operate on the ultra-high frequency band. Under his direction, the FCC also attempted to supervise television and radio advertising closely. Although he served in that position for only two years, it was estimated that during that time, Minow and his ideas received more news coverage than any other federal official besides the president. Minow resigned from the agency in 1963 to become executive vice president and general counsel to the Encyclopaedia Britannica (1963–65). He then became a partner in the communications law firm Sidley and Austin (1965–91), after which he took on the Of Counsel role. Minow took to teaching as well, serving from 1987 as professor of communications policy and law in the Annenberg Program of Northwestern University. Active in Jewish affairs, Minow was a member of B'nai B'rith; a director of the Chicago chapter of the American Jewish Committee; and chair of the board of overseers of the Jewish Theological Seminary. He wrote Equal Time: The Private Broadcasters and the Public Interest (1964); Presidential Television (with J. Martin and L. Mitchell, 1973); For Great Debates (1987); How Vast the Wasteland Now (1995); and Abandonedin the Wasteland (with C. Lamay, 1995). -BIBLIOGRAPHY: L.J. Silver, Profiles in Success (1965), 303–13. ADD. BIBLIOGRAPHY: M. Curtin, Redeeming the Wasteland (1995); M. Watson, The Expanding Vista: American Television in the Kennedy Years (1990); R. Macneil, The People Machine: The Influence of Television on American Politics (1968). (Ruth Beloff (2nd ed.)