Historian Daniel Boorstin, the Librarian of Congress, has called television "the next great crisis in human consciousness." Such crises attend the birth of every new form of mass commu- nication. Even the written word did not emerge unchallenged. Plato warned that disciples of writing would "generally know nothing; they will be tiresome company, having the shadow of wisdom without the reality." The printing press, too, had its critics. It bred heresy and dissent, some said, a...