Later in 1958, Murrow would deliver his lament for what he felt had befallen television over the decade. Its deep embrace of advertising had resulted in a kind of self-imposed (and sometimes sponsor-imposed) censorship: anything too downbeat, dark, or challenging was being systematically suppressed, for fear of contradicting the upbeat and optimistic commercial messages of television's sponsors. And so while radio, at its best, had forced Americans to confront the horrors of Europe, television was acting as a buffer. "Television in the main insulates us from the realities of the world in which we live. If this state of affairs continues, we may alter an advertising slogan to read: LOOK NOW, PAY LATER, for surely we shall pay for using this most powerful instrument of communication to insulate the citizenry from the hard and demanding realities which must be faced if we are to survive."

Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, loc. 497