Television, a Power for Good or Cultural Suicide?

Since the first broadcast in 1928, television "has been as reviled as it has been welcomed." In 1953, science fiction writer Ray Bradbury called it "that insidious beast…that Siren which called and sang and promised so much and gave, after all, so little." But is TV really responsible for "poor health, ignorance and moral decline?" In the current issue of Foreign Policy, World Bank economist Charles Kenny writes that television still rules our world -- even in the age of the Internet -- and often for good, rather than evil.