It began more than 30 years ago with a question at a dinner party
at Joan Ganz Cooney's Manhattan apartment: Could the power of
television be used to teach millions of pre-school children the
basics of literacy? That question from Lloyd Morrisett, a young
foundation executive, soon led to the launching of the most popular
children's program in the world, Sesame Street, defying the odds in
an industry that had long placed faith in selling soap rather than
serving the educational needs of its audiences.
For Morrisett, the birth of Sesame Street was the beginning of
an often-lonely, sometimes triumphant and occasionally futile
struggle to make quality and equity count in the communications
revolution that has so dramatically altered every aspect of life
over the last half-century: from newspapers, radio, film and
television to computers and the internet.
Big Bird and Beyond reveals the pivotal role Morrisett played
since 1969, as president of The John & Mary R. Markle
Foundation and as chairman of the Children's Television Workshop,
in launching Peggy Charren's Action for Children's Television,
rescuing the Columbia Journalism Review and the Fund for
Investigative Journalism from bankruptcy, establishing the National
News Council in Defiance of the nation's most powerful newspaper,
and spurring Cable News Network to provide more-issue oriented
presidential election coverage. It describes how Markle almost
single-handedly promoted the idea of using computers and the
Internet to enrich the lives of the elderly, and most recently, how
electronic mail might connect citizens more effectively to
government and other institutions affecting their lives.
For three decades, then, Morrisettbecame the Ralph Nader of the
communications field, a tireless civic advocate who spent millions
and tapped the talents of some of the best minds in America in an
idealistic battle for the educational, cultural and political
potential of both old and newer media.
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