Video: 'Spiro Agnew attacks television media November 13, 1969 Des Moines [FULL]'

(Thursday, November 13, 1969, approximately 6:00 p.m. CST; during the Vietnam War, part of the Indochina Wars and the Cold War) — U.S. Vice President Spiro Agnew accused the three American television networks (whose affiliate stations’ broadcast rights were licensed by the United States government) tonight of permitting producers of news programs, newscasters and commentators to give the American people a highly selected and often biased presentation of the news.

Video: 'Vietnam: A Television History - Homefront USA [10/11]' (Nov. 13, 1969, at 39:47)

Agnew accused network executives of letting their newscasters and commentators of abusing “a concentration of power over American public opinion, unknown in history” and hinted that “perhaps it is time that the networks were made more responsive to the views of the nation and more responsible to the people they serve”, and urged Americans to call and write their local TV stations.

Video: 'Television & the Presidency Part 8' (Nov. 13, 1969, at 5:13)

Agnew delivered the criticism at during the Midwest Regional Republican Conference at the Hotel Fort Des Moines in Des Moines, Iowa, after a disappointing response from the networks’ news to President Richard Nixon’s Vietnamization speech of Nov. 3, 1969.

Video: 'PBS Documentary "Television" - Episode 4 of 8' (Nov. 13, 1969, at 42:14)

Frank Stanton of CBS called the speech “an unprecedented attempt by the vice president of the United States to intimidate a news medium which depends for its existence upon government licenses.”