Fred W. Friendly

Fred W. Friendly (October 30, 1915 – March 3, 1998) was a president of CBS News and the creator, along with Edward R. Murrow, of the documentary television program See It Now. He originated the concept of public-access television cable TV channels.

Quotes

• No mighty king, no ambitious emperor, no pope, or prophet ever dreamt of such an awesome pulpit, so potent a magic wand.
  • p.vii, Foreword, Presidential Television, A Twentieth Century Fund report, Newton N. Minow, John Bartlow Martin, Lee M. Mitchell, Basic Books, 1973.

• Television makes so much at its worst that it can't afford to do its best.
  • Source: US News & World Report 12 Jun 67, After becoming professor of broadcast journalism at Columbia University)

• Television was supposed to be a national park. (Instead) it has become a money machine... It’s a commodity now, just like pork bellies.
  • Quoted by Rushworth M Kidder “Videoculture” Christian Science Monitor 10 Jun 85

• A composite is a euphemism for a lie. It's disorderly. It's dishonest and it's not journalism.
  • Commenting on New Yorker staff writer Alastair Reid's use of composite characters.
  • p. 65, The interplay of influence: mass media and their publics in news, advertising, politics, Wadsworth series in mass communication, Kathleen Hall Jamieson, Karlyn Kohrs Campbell, Edition 2, Wadsworth, 1988.

• "I have a motto: My job is not to make up anybody's mind but to make the agony of decision making so intense that you can escape only by thinking."
  • Open Mind Interview

• What we don't know as a nation and as a citizen can kill us.
  • Open Mind Interview

• "You gotta be willing to be lucky."
  • Friendlyvision