Michael Curtin's initial interest in the network documentaries of the early 1960s grew from a nostalgia for the so-called "golden age" of television journalism. As a broadcast journalist during the 1970s and 1980s, he wanted to learn more about the unique era when crusading pioneers like Murrow and Severeid churned out objective yet biting in-depth accounts of the day's most important issues.  But as he began to study the period more closely, he found that popular mythology had left out many of the shortcomings that accompanied the documentary era. 
In Redeeming the Wasteland: Television Documentary and Cold War Politics, Curtin, an Assistant Professor in the Department of Journalism and director of the Cultural Studies Program at Indiana University, examines the brief reign of network documentary as the product of a complex web of political, economic, social and institutional forces. Far from being objective reflections of their time, he contends, the network documentaries were rife with agendas, contradictions and prejudices.
Curtin argues that the documentaries were in large part propaganda machines for John F. Kennedy's New Frontier global activism.  Responding to Sputnik and the supposed "missile gap," JFK sought to rally the country behind foreign and domestic policies designed to thwart communist influence. Television, JFK learned during the 1960 campaign, could be a powerful tool in achieving such a goal, and he found that many network journalists were more than happy to compromise their objectivity for a chance to "serve the government." CBS's Fred Friendly, for instance, declared himself "constantly available" to Kennedy.
The networks had their own reasons for pursuing the documentary format as well. The quiz show scandals of the 1950s and criticism of the medium as a "vast wasteland" led the networks to look for ways to clean up programming before the government took action on its own. Not insignificantly, the documentary format also provided a way to wrestle control of content away from advertisers. The networks also feared that the U.S. market had neared its saturation point and began to pursue global expansion opportunities. Thus, Kennedy's plans to ensure that foreign markets were "free" and not communist dovetailed nicely with the networks' ambitions for "Global Television." 
As a result, the documentaries emphasized overseas topics and examined most domestic issues within the context of the Cold War. Thus, correspondents traveled to China and Russia to expose the threatening yet vulnerable underside of communism and chronicled the fight of "middle ground" countries such as Italy and Brazil against communist influence. At home, issues such as space exploration, technology and poverty were all linked to America's role in fighting the Cold War.  All the while, the reports marginalized large portions of the population such as African-Americans and women; even when they did address issues of race or women's rights, it was from a white male perspective.
Curtin has woven an impressive indictment of the New Frontier documentary, using a great breadth of primary sources while bolstering his insight with a wealth of cultural context. Redeeming the Wasteland: Television Documentary and Cold War Politics not only provides a fresh examination of the reports themselves but presents a convincing case study of how various forces compete to use the media to further their agendas. Even those who are not motivated by the same nostalgia for the golden age that inspired Curtin will find this work a compelling account of how the media operate in the complex sphere of politics, economics and sociology.