Ray Bradbury tells LA Weekly that many critics have missed the point of his book:

Fahrenheit 451 is not, [Bradbury] says firmly, a story about government censorship. Nor was it a response to Senator Joseph McCarthy, whose investigations had already instilled fear and stifled the creativity of thousands. . . . Bradbury, a man living in the creative and industrial center of reality TV and one-hour dramas, says it is, in fact, a story about how television destroys interest in reading literature.

As a follow-up, Frank makes a couple points on this conversation.