The Tarnished Image

Never before had television's "image" (as Madison Avenue likes to put it) been so tarnished in the public mind. It was plain from the hearings on the quiz fixes (see below) that the scandal had not been isolated; both NBC and CBS, all quiz shows in general, and hundreds of individuals were deeply involved. A more disturbing note on U.S. morals, 1959: of 150 quiz witnesses who appeared before the New York County grand jury and swore before God (or on their affirmations) to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, no less than 100, said District Attorney Frank Hogan, had lied, or to put it in legal language, perjured themselves.

In these decadent circumstances, network brass pleaded that they had been as much duped as the viewing public, but it became fairly well evident that, if they did not know about the quizzes, it was because they had not wanted or had not tried to know. The whole affair, wrote the New York Times, focused attention "on a shocking state of rottenness within the radio-television world and on the 'get-rich-quick' schemes through which so many people were corrupted and so many millions deceived. What has been revealed is deplorable in respect to the level of public morality both in the industry and in the individual."

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