... The networks, of course, were pushing for televised press conferences; it would not only be a breakthrough for the President, it would be a breakthrough for them, as they made the President bigger so he would make them bigger, make them more legitimate, they would, after all, not just be passing on to their audience a bunch of comedians and tap dancers, but the President of the United States, and that was serious business. ... The real exploitation would come with the man who followed [Eisenhower] in office, John Kennedy.Dwight Eisenhower had decided to make television an instrument of presidential power. Sam Rayburn, in his beloved House of Representatives, had made the exact opposite decision. It might be turning into a wired world, but he was not going to wire the House. Rayburn didn't like the print press; he despised and feared television. It simply multiplied all the dangers ofthe press without, as far as he was concerned, bringing any benefits. He hated House members who longed only to run for the Senate, and senators who longed only to run for the presidency. He was appalled by what he felt television had done to the Senate by the mid-fifties. It had become a major launching platform for presidential campaigns. He thought television had ruined the Senate as a serious body. "All they do there is preen and comb their hair and run for President. It's like a presidential primary over there," he said. He would complain to his friends that these senators were no longer rooted in their districts, no longer connected to their people and to the daily lives of their constituents. Instead, he said, they were linked to cameras and machines that made them look good. "I hate what it does," he said, and meant it. He made a deliberate decision to keep television out of the House, not just out of the main chamber but (unlike the Senate) out of the committee rooms and the corridors as well. It was one of his most important legacies: the rest of Washington might be modernizing, that was all right with him, but he was having none of it. Print was bad enough. But at least you could make a deal with certain print reporters and they honored it. But who could make a deal with the camera? When people pushed him to go on television himself he refused. "I won't sell their cereal for them," he once told Marquis Childs.
Also, and this was equally important, television threatened the House leadership in a generational sense. In the Rayburn years seniority had become the only test for leadership. Thus the leadership was very old, the dominant figures were all in their seventies and eighties; they were men who certainly had not risen to power because of their attractive appearance. Often it was quite the reverse. Television encouraged youth, it helped the young Jack Kennedy in his 1960 presidential quest, it liked vigor. And it made old men look even older. Age was the ally of the House leadership. The more isolated their district, the easier it was for them to hold power. Television broke the isolation; besides, with a single appearance a very junior, very articulate, very handsome congressman might cast a larger spell than a committee chairman. That was very threatening. The camera was thus more than an impertinence or an annoyance; it could become a genuine danger to the very power structure of the House.
ping
What’s a television?
I watch, maybe, 6 hours of TV per week. So I have no use for cable or satellite.
Cable companies are getting every more desparate for customers. I can tell by the deals they keep sending my way.