This post will not be a regular posting. For my Media history class, I was assigned to do an interview with a man by the name of Cumen Jones(One of the Biggest STUDS ever). Cumen is one of my oldest friends and I thought it would be interesting to learn about the generation gap between him and I concerning the Media. MY NEXT POSTING WILL FOCUS ON MY ADVENTURES IN PHILADELPHIA!!!

Cumen Jones Oral History Project
Interview with Cumen Jones
Interviewer: Ricky Butler
Transcriber: Ricky Butler
Recording # 7 in the Q-HP

Butler: This is the Cumen Jones oral history project, with a purpose for him to explain the changes he has seen in his life with the media.

Butler: I was wondering if you have always had a T.V. in your home as a child.

Jones: No ... no. They did not always have T.V. when I was a child, um commercial T.V. really hit the scene when I was about 8 or 9 years old ah they had T.V. before that and I can remember the first T.V. I saw was at my next-door neighbor’s house.

Butler: How did you react to that?

Jones: I thought it was great… I just enjoyed at that moment until this. It is a terrible time waster but I enjoy watching T.V. but I am very limited to what I watch now few one time programs. I usually watch old movies and sports.

Butler: Do you remember the reaction of your parents?

Jones: No I don’t remember the reaction of my parents.

Butler: You remember it being amazed with it huh?

Jones: What I remember as a child was the radio. I remember radio dramas. I remember going home after Sacrament on Sunday nights and lying on the floor in from of our console radio listening to the jack Benny show inner sanctum, the shadow, and gun smoke. A lot of these shows later became Television shows.

Jones: I also remember putting my thumb over the red light on the radio and seeing being amazed that my thumb was translucent.

Butler: Hahahaha!!!! :D

Jones: That is my first memory of the radio.

Butler: Was the radio controversial?

Jones: Sure.. aw.. People would get offended but first of all they were quiet about it they never made a federal case out of it. Now they always make a federal case out of it. They had the sane not to make a case out of it.

Jones: Now everything is becoming a federal case.

Butler: What changes have you seen over your lifetime?

Jones: Are you talking about as an Entertainment or news or?

Butler: Entertainment and news.

Jones: I do not know much in terms about the entertainment part of it. I don’t think I liked it much better than I did when I was younger.

Jones: Well we had black and white T.V. when I was a boy. Color T.V. didn’t hit the scene until 1963 after the Kennedy assassination. During the time Oswald was killed by ruby it was black and white. I was married before T.V. that I was watching regularly was color T.V... It was the 70’s until I got a colored T.V..

Jones: I have seen a change with the news. The Biggest problem or change in my lifetime that I have see is in the presentation of news. The network news outlet news are irrelevant today and I suspect will go away because of the cable news. And News is on 24 hours a day. The difference of reporting the news and editorializing the news has been totally been eradicated. They are making editorial comments when presenting the news now.

Jones: When you talk about MSNBC or Fox that are supposed to present the news don’t do that any more. They are making qualitative remarks or editorial remarks and not news.

Butler: Have you noticed a negative affect with this current generation?

Jones: They get more suspicious of the government and then more suspicious of the media. They just get more and more disillusioned.

Butler: What do you with there was more of in the media?

Jones: I don’t really know.

Butler: What do you miss from the good old days of media?

Jones: Well … I cant really think of any thing that I miss…

Jones: I Miss programs that are based on something other than insult humor. All of the comedies today are insults, everybody is just insulting back and forth even from the time of cheers to Drew Carrey and Roseanne Barr. These people just insult, insult, and insult.

Jones: I also miss little children on T.V... There are no more little children they are little adults saying adult lines. These are written by adults then read by children. So there are not really any children on T.V. any more.

Jones: Nobody talks how a child talks on T.V. anymore.

Jones: I miss Programs or movies with some respect for authority- The genre I call it the John landaus genre that parents or more stupid than children. All parents are stupid and the children outwitted them all. There is a movement that the parents are stupid and the younger are intelligent. You see this in movies like home alone.

Jones: What does it teach our children? I think it teaches them to be something other than they really are.
Butler: Well thank you so much, that was perfect.

If you think this is interesting and would like to see the whole transcription please respond.