Pubdate: Mon, 24 Jan 2000
Source: Houston Chronicle (TX)
Copyright: 2000 Houston Chronicle
Contact:  Viewpoints Editor, P.O. Box 4260 Houston, Texas 77210-4260
Fax: (713) 220-3575
Website: http://www.chron.com/
Forum: http://www.chron.com/content/hcitalk/index.html
Page: 20A (editorial page)
Author: Charles Krauthammer
Note: Krauthammer is a Pulitzer Prize-winning syndicated columnist based in 
Washington, D.C.

Also: MAP is trying to identify as many newspapers as possible that this 
column appeared in. Readers, even if you are not sure how to newshawk the 
column, but you know it appeared in your newspaper, we would appreciate a 
note with the newspaper name, pubdate and title for the column. So far, 
besides this newspaper, we know it appeared in The Washington Post, Everett 
Herald (WA), Seattle Times (WA). Please send your notes to SELLING OUT FIRST AMENDMENT RIGHTS

NO one invokes the sanctity of the First Amendment more often and more 
passionately than the media. When music companies are criticized for 
purveying the most repulsive misogynistic rap lyrics, they hoist the First 
Amendment flag. When newspaper reporters who've given confidentiality 
pledges refuse to testify about their sources, the flag is run up again.

As it should be. For all its abuses, the First Amendment is perhaps the 
greatest of all bulwarks against the power of government. It turns out, 
however, that the TV networks are not quite the First Amendment purists 
they pretend to be. Dangle some cash in front of them and they will let the 
White House drug czar vet their scripts.

Salon magazine reported Jan. 13 that in return for being released from the 
obligation to show free anti-drug ads (and thus enabled to sell that ad 
time), the TV networks have allowed the White House to review prime time 
programs to make sure they send the right anti-drug message.

These networks are parts of some of the same media giants that make 
passionate protestations of their sovereign right to purvey syncopated CD 
incitement to rape and murder. They are quite willing, however, to accept 
government meddling in their prime time shows if that makes them money.

How much money? There's the howler. The six networks combined sold their 
First Amendment soul for a grand total of $25 million. This for companies 
with combined revenues of about $5 billion.

In reality, this ad-money-for-script-vetting swap is a novel form of 
product placement. Product placement is the practice of taking a bundle of 
cash from Coke in return for having the hero swig some prominently onscreen.

Disturbing as it is, gratuitously inserting a soda can or cereal box into a 
scene for money is a trivial form of artistic corruption. However, 
inserting government-sponsored messages is not.

Unlike Coke and Kellogg, government has the power to tax, audit, subpoena, 
imprison. We allow companies and individuals and groups to put all kinds of 
pressure on media -- through advertising, boycotts, lobbying. But we balk 
when government, with such unique and abusable power, steps in. In a system 
where liberty is preserved by the separation and diffusion of power, we 
rightly refuse to grant government even more power through control of the 
content of free media.

One reason is to prevent slightly Orwellian press releases of the kind 
issued by the White House drug office on Jan. 14. It is headlined "New 
Study Finds Little Depiction of Illicit Drugs on Network Prime Time 
Television: White House Drug Czar Pleased with Accurate Portrayals." He 
should be. He paid for it.

No big deal, you say. This whole affair involves nothing more than 
promoting anti-drug messages on prime time shows. What's so wrong with that?

The big deal is not these particular ads, but the principle: government's 
hand in mass media scriptwriting. If that is no big deal, what is to 
prevent government from doing it for other causes of its choosing?

President Clinton and his spokesmen were asked whether the vetting of 
scripts might not be extended to equally worthy messages about "gun 
control" and "youth violence" (and why not to recycling, ethnic tolerance, 
charitable giving and the correct use of the fork?). The response was not 
encouraging.

Press Secretary Joe Lockhart was defiant. We were "looking for other ways 
to get the (anti-drug) message out that allows networks in a robust 
advertising environment to sell to other people where they can make more 
money," he said.

Got a problem with that? Well, yes. Some find the practice corrupting. And 
when they asked Lockhart if it does not raise questions about deceptive 
government influence, he responded in perfect Clintonian fashion: "As far 
as sort of theological questions for the entertainment industry," said 
Lockhart, "I suggest you put the questions to the entertainment industry."

But of course. This is surely an airy abstraction for the likes of Thomas 
Aquinas, on retainer at DreamWorks.
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake