Betraying the Dream (Machine): NET, the FBI, and Regulating Public Television Content in the 1970s

This article investigates the history of content regulation in the US public television sector. It analyzes the context and consequences of an October 1971 decision by the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) to remove a segment from National Educational Television’s (NET) popular series The Great American Dream Machine that alleged the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) had recruited young men to infiltrate student groups and engage in violent acts. The controversy that followed PBS’s decision both exposed fissures and resolved conflicts over who would have the authority to determine the contours and politics of public television programing. This moment, as this article illustrates, also spoke to an escalating shift in the press’s relationship to the government, particularly the FBI, and the uncertainty of publicly funded television’s contribution to adversarial journalism.