Newton Minow, who served Pres. John F. Kennedy as Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission in 1961, will speak about the upcoming presidential debates at this month's Stevenson Center Dialogues in Democracy program.
It's been 50 years since the controversial 35-year-old famously dubbed television the "vast wasteland" and generated more news coverage than any administration official, other than Kennedy himself.
For the last two decades, Minow has served on the Commission on Presidental Debates, an idea first proposed by Adlai E. Stevenson II in 1960. He will share his first-hand knowledge of the battles over who can debate and under what circumstances.
Find out what's happening in Libertyvillewith free, real-time updates from Patch.
Minow has spent his career dedicated to reforming television to better serve the public interest. He has been chairman of PBS and on the board of CBS. He has written a book about the origins of the debates with suggestions for their improvement today titled Inside the Presidential Debates.
