Legal career After graduating from law school, Minow worked for the law firm of
Mayer, Brown & Platt (1950–1951 and 1953–1955) before becoming a law clerk to Chief Justice
Fred M. Vinson of the
U.S. Supreme Court (1951–1952). Minow was the senior counsel in the Chicago-headquartered law firm of
Sidley Austin LLP, a large international law firm with multiple areas of expertise, including telecommunications-related law. Between 1965 and 1991, he was a managing partner in the firm before becoming senior counsel in 1991.
Communication career As Federal Communications Commission chairman John F. Kennedy in 1963 Reportedly,
Robert F. Kennedy and Minow frequently talked at length about the increasing importance of television in the lives of their children when they worked together on the presidential campaign of
Adlai E. Stevenson. Thereafter, it came as little surprise that after the election of John F. Kennedy, Minow eagerly pursued the position of FCC chairman. Some observers nevertheless considered it unusual given his lack of experience with the media industry and with communication law. In 1961 he was appointed by President Kennedy to be one of seven commissioners of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) as well as its chairman. He served as chairman from March 2, 1961, through June 1, 1963.
Criticism and evaluation Minow became one of the best-known and respected—if sometimes controversial—political figures of the early 1960s because of his criticism of commercial television. In a speech given to the
National Association of Broadcasters convention on May 9, 1961, he was extremely critical of television broadcasters for not doing more, in Minow's view, to serve the public interest. His phrase "vast wasteland" is remembered years after the speech in which he said: While some applauded his "vast wasteland" assault on commercial television as a welcome criticism of excessive violence and frivolity, others criticized it as an
elitist,
snobbish attack on programming that many viewers enjoyed as well as a government intrusion into private enterprise. The
S.S. Minnow of the 1964–67 television show ''
Gilligan's Island'' was reputedly
sarcastically named after him to express displeasure with his assessment of the quality of television.
Achievements at the Federal Communications Commission Minow did foster two significant initiatives that altered the landscape of American television. The first was the
All-Channel Receiver Act (ACRA) of 1961, which mandated
UHF reception capability for all
television receivers sold in the United States. This legislation sparked an increase in the number of television stations and helped launch nonprofit educational television stations (now
PBS) throughout the country. Quote from a speech to the Association of American Law Schools: After 35 years, I have finished a comprehensive study of European comparative law. In Germany, under the law, everything is prohibited, except that which is permitted. In France, under the law, everything is permitted, except that which is prohibited. In the Soviet Union, under the law, everything is prohibited, including that which is permitted. And in Italy, under the law, everything is permitted, especially that which is prohibited.
As part of Board of Governors of the Public Broadcasting Service Minow sat on the Board of Governors of the
Public Broadcasting Service and its predecessor,
National Educational Television serving from 1973 to 1980 and serving as its chairman from 1978 to 1980. He served out a tenure as the president of the
Carnegie Corporation, a PBS sponsor, and the original funder of
Sesame Street.
Diplomatic career Minow's early contact with Singapore and Singaporean officials was through his law work at Sidley Austin, which opened a Singapore office in 1982. Even when he was FCC chairman, he worried about the increasing export of Hollywood programming overseas and the impact it would have on perceptions of the United States among citizens in other countries. Minow was appointed honorary consul general in 2001.
Corporate work Minow sat on the board of directors at Foote, Cone & Belding Communications Inc.; Tribune Co.; Manpower, Inc.; AON Corp.;
CBS, and the
Sara Lee Corporation. He was chairman of the Board at the
RAND Corporation. He was a trustee of the Chicago Orchestral Association as well as with the Mayo Foundation, which operates the
Mayo Clinic. He was a life trustee of Northwestern University and the
University of Notre Dame, where he was the first Jewish member of the board, and at the time of his death he was the chairman of the Board of the
World Health Imaging, Telemedicine and Informatics Alliance. Between 2015 and 2018, Minow served as a member of the Executive Advisory Council of the
American Archive of Public Broadcasting (AAPB), after which, his daughter Mary Minow joined the council. In 2020, the AAPB launched the 'Broadcasting in the Public Interest: The Newton Minow Collection' to honor Minow's role in developing noncommercial television. The collection includes interviews, panels, testimonies, events, and profiles featuring him between 1961 and 2016. == Contemporary politics ==