The Vanishing Vision

"A monumental achievement. He has written a comprehensive history of public broadcasting that reads like a 'who done it.' Sometimes a detached observer and sometimes a key participant, Day provides the reader with a riveting account of the events, the heroes, the villains and bit players that make up the compelling and complex story of public broadcasting."--Joan Ganz Cooney, Chairman, Executive Committee, Children's Television Workshop "A lively, highly readable, important account of the idealists, bumblers, bureaucrats, well-meaning incompetents, and dedicated souls who built America's flawed and perpetually endangered public television system. James Day is one of the giants of public television's not-so-distant early days, and he provides a knowing, fascinating, and intelligent history of the little television system that has tried to be everything to everybody, has satisfied practically nobody, was built on a foundation of no visible means of financial support, and is more desperately needed now than ever."--Lawrence K. Grossman, former president of PBS and NBC News and author of The Electronic Republic "James Day's fascinating history of public television is the very best way I know of to understand that glorious, complicated, frustrating, and utterly American institution. It comes at a time when PBS is facing its greatest challenges and could well be the reference guide as public television approaches the millennium."--Ken Burns, producer of "The Civil War" and "Baseball" "The long, unfinished struggle to create--against daunting odds--an alternative television not tethered to market forces is James Day's theme in this sweeping chronicle. This story--one of achievement eroded by internal dissention but, more significantly, by political log-rolling and chicanery--needs to be told, and Day does so with panache."--Erik Barnouw, author of Tube of Plenty