- Was mentioned in an Allan Sherman song entitled "Oh Boy" as Newton "B." Minow.
- He was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian award, by President Barack Obama, in a live televised ceremony held in the East Room of the White House, on November 22, 2016, along with twenty other recipients, the the largest, and final Medal of Freedom ceremony of Obama's presidency. At this ceremony, the twenty-one recipients, in alphabetical order, included: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Elouise Cobell (posthumous award given to her son), Ellen DeGeneres, Robert De Niro, Richard Garwin, Bill Gates, Melinda Gates, Frank Gehry, Margaret Hamilton (as Margaret H. Hamilton), Tom Hanks, Rear Admiral Grace Hopper (posthumous award given to her niece), Michael Jordan, Maya Lin, Lorne Michaels, Newton Minow, Eduardo Padron (as Eduardo Padrón), Robert Redford, Diana Ross, Vin Scully, Bruce Springsteen, and Cicely Tyson.
- He promoted televised presidential debates, and worked with the League of Women Voters to find a workaround solution to the FCC's equal-time provision.
- He was a Federal Communications Commission chairman who in 1961 referred to US television as a "vast wasteland". He made the remark in a speech to the National Association of Broadcasters convention. Sherwood Schwartz, creator of "Gilligan's Island," reputedly named the marooned S.S. Minnow after the FCC chief as a retort.
- He urged federal funding to increase the number of educational TV stations. The expanded network eventually became the Public Broadcasting Service.
- After serving in the Army Signal Corps, he attended Northwestern University on an accelerated program for returning WWII veterans. He earned an undergraduate degree and a law degree.
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