Word: westin
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Arriving at Manhattan's NBC news studios, leased for the premiere of the Public Broadcast Laboratory (TIME, Nov. 10), Executive Director Av Westin last week found a note left by the regular occupants. "The moneymen of Huntley-Brinkley," the message read, "hope you do-gooders do good. Good luck!" PBL will need some luck; it didn't do so good...
...purpose of PBL, says Executive Director Av Westin, is "to stir things up, to challenge the status quo of both commercial and educational television...
...Westin had his stir even before the first program went on the air, chiefly be cause PBL had not yet resolved its most fundamental internal problem: point of view. If PBL hopes to provide an alternative to much of the pap that fills the commercial channels, it will have to be provocative. But the concern of some of PBL's advisers was that PBL's programming might confuse sensationalism, or at least irresponsibility, with healthy iconoclasm...
...computer banks, to end both public and private use of lie detectors and personality tests unless the subject freely consents and to confine surveillance to what can be actually seen and heard with the unaided human eye and ear. Well aware that society sometimes has legitimate reasons for snooping, Westin would allow exceptions under specific conditions...
...Westin would like to believe the time is ripe for such laws, and he says in conclusion that "American society now seems ready to face the impact of science on privacy." He points with hope to the fact that both far left and right share a distaste for the electronic invaders. But his reliance on the public may be too optimistic. As he indicates elsewhere in the book, public concern has blown hot over subliminal advertising, but has been only lukewarm in other areas. It shows no real sign of having changed...