Legacy of a Kidnapping: Lindbergh and the Triumph of the Tabloids

This is a highly critical program that aired on a local public television station, and, much to my dismay, I never saw it again. Narrated by then magazine editor and media critic, Lewis Lapham, this program uses the renowned aviator Charles Lindbergh as a springboard to address a hypothetical question, "When did it start?"

After Charles Augustus Lindbergh broke ground by successfully traversing the Atlantic Ocean by air from Long Island's Roosevelt Field to Paris in May of 1927, it gained him worldwide fame, and in likely retrospect, made the shy pilot one among the first of modern celebrities. It was this prominence which factored into news of his kidnapped son in 1932. That kidnapping, Lapham argues, is the framework for contemporary press sensationalism.

Although documentaries are common in public TV, one summary of "Legacy of a Kidnapping" describes it as less so, and more like a "video essay" where Lapham excoriates aspects of today's entertainment-driven news media. As one review stated that Lapham exonerates the press,somewhat, by placing the burden on the public. Another, the aforementioned summary, attributes to publisher William Randolph Hearst, the idea that readers want to be entertained—above anything else.