News Coverage.

The development of television as a new entertainment medium was news in the 1950s: coverage of television in newspapers increased by 500 percent from 1953 to 1955. Along with this increased coverage came the rise of the television critic. Writing in both newspapers and magazines, these men — there were few female critics in the 1950s (Janet Kern of the Chicago Tribune was the most prominent) — debated and commented on not only the content of television shows but the nature of the medium itself.

The Elite.

The two most respected television critics of the 1950s were Jack Gould of the New York Times and John Crosby of the New York Herald Tribune. Their careers have paralleled each other. In the manner of newspapermen of the time, neither Gould nor Crosby graduated from college, though Crosby did attend Yale University for two years. Both men...