One newsman who feels that the Fairness Doctrine as it is now enforced does not square with First Amendment rights to freedom of speech and press is Fred Friendly. He is the former president of CBS News who resigned in 1966 when CBS decided to run I Love Lucy instead of the Senate hearings on Vietnam. For the past 10 years Friendly, 60, has been a professor at Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism and a Ford Foundation adviser. In his recent book The Good Guys, the Bad Guys and the First Amendment (Random House) and in subsequent interviews, he contends that the Fairness Doctrine has "put broadcasters in the grasp of a chilling hand" and is responsible for the tendency to produce more situation comedies and fewer TV news programs. Friendly talked about the impact of TV this election year—and a bit wishfully about the future—with Christopher P. Andersen of PEOPLE.
Is the Fairness Doctrine really fair?
Not as it is now conceived and enforced by the Federal Communications Commission and the courts. It does not really stimulate radio and TV stations to devote "a reasonable amount of time" to controversial issues. Many stations fear interference by the federal government, so they avoid trouble altogether by doing as few documentaries as possible. It is a rationale for timidity, an excuse for cowardice.
Can the Fairness Doctrine and the First Amendment co-exist?
Yes, if they are both viewed with common sense. I don't think the Fairness Doctrine was ever intended to be more than a benign yearning for fair play, for some balance in broadcasting. It's a pretty dull instrument, but the seven bureaucrats in Washington known as the FCC are trying to make a sharp razor out of it. How in the heck do you certify that Walter Cronkite's evening news broadcast last night was "fair"? The idea is preposterous.
Isn't there any satisfactory way of measuring fairness on radio and television?
Lots of people have tried, but it is impossible. The stopwatch technique of actually counting the seconds and fractions of seconds devoted to each side of an issue is just silly. The FCC relies heavily on scripts to determine fairness, but that is like looking at the skeleton of a naked woman. Without the tone, the inflection or the expression on the face of the TV newsman, you can't judge the full impact.
Can you give some examples?
When Edwin Newman was investigating pensions for an NBC special, he interviewed New Jersey Sen. Harrison A. Williams Jr., chairman of the Senate Labor Committee. The camera was on Newman, and Williams, attempting to illustrate the obfuscating language of pension forms, asked Newman to read the small type in one form. Afterward Williams said, "Well, of course you understood it." Newman is not an actor, but he does have the rubbery, expressive face of a Walter Matthau. When he replied "Perfectly!" it was clear that Newman was being sarcastic. But to anyone reading the script, it looked as though he meant it.
Since the airwaves belong to the people, don't they have a right to see that balance in TV reporting is insured?
In the end, the open marketplace will determine what's put on the air and what's fair—not rigid rules and finicky bureaucrats. A station or network which ignores its public affairs responsibility and sense of fairness will ultimately lose its following.
Don't the networks want it both ways—to be left alone by the FCC and also have the government block competition from the cable industry?
Absolutely. The networks see cable TV and other new developments as encroachments on their turf. In the end, the networks will have to accept a free system open to all.
What kind of pressures does the FCC bring to bear on stations?
The ultimate pressure for any station, of course, is the threat to take away a station's license. That happened in 1971, when the Lamar Life Broadcasting Company finally lost its license to operate station WLBT in Jackson, Miss, after years of broadcasting white racist propaganda. Among other things, the station cut off black Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall when he appeared on a network show by flashing a "Sorry, Cable Trouble" sign on screen. On another occasion in 1962, when James Meredith was trying to integrate the University of Mississippi, the station manager exhorted viewers to "keep that nigra out of Ole Miss." In that case, enforcement of the Fairness Doctrine was more than justified.
When was FCC pressure not justified?
This June, for example, the FCC told radio station WHAR in Clarksburg, W.Va. to do more programs about strip mining. I think it is deplorable that the station hadn't voluntarily done this, but that kind of government intervention is outrageous!
Is there a liberal bias to TV news?
No, only an affinity for righting the things that are wrong with society. A lot of politicians confuse that with liberalism. I do believe, though, that many more journalists are Democrats than Republicans. Shortly after Dwight Eisenhower became President, I was in Gettysburg with Cronkite getting ready to interview Ike. While they were setting up the cameras, Eisenhower leaned over to me and asked, "Is Cronkite a Democrat?" I told him that I thought 51 percent of journalists were against all politicians. He laughed.
How have Presidents treated TV news?
With a certain degree of suspicion, I think. Eisenhower had a pretty healthy attitude. John Kennedy did not. If there are people with thin skins, Kennedy had no skin. He saw his administration as it was presented on television and in the newspapers, and he felt he had to manipulate the news. There's something very unhealthy about the President phoning up newsmen and planting stories, as Kennedy often did.
What about Lyndon Johnson?
Kennedy succeeded in his attempt to control the news; Johnson did not. JFK was cultivated enough to use a benign form of arm-twisting to get his way. Johnson tried all that, but lacked finesse. He used to come right out and say Communists run the networks. But if LBJ was paranoid about the press, then Richard Nixon was psychotic.
The Watergate investigation revealed that White House aide Charles Colson directly pressured the networks. Why didn't the networks report it?
That is a great mystery. I guess the answer is that the White House was so close to succeeding, the networks couldn't take the chance.
How do you rate Gerald Ford's conduct toward the press and television?
President Ford deserves high marks. Because he followed the aberrations of Nixon, he has been exemplary. In my opinion, we haven't had a man as honest and direct as this in the White House since Harry Truman.
To what extent will the presidential candidates be "sold" on TV this year?
We are getting into a very dangerous area now where the sole aim is the recognition factor. We get the image flashed at us for 10 seconds like an ad for cereal. There is a disturbing Big Brother quality about it all.
How do the present Democratic and Republican presidential contenders fare on television?
This is the day of the cool candidate. Carter is cool and confident, but he runs the risk of appearing too confident. He better not think he's got it in the bag. Ronald Reagan is an old hand who looks like the hero of a Western. He is at his most effective on television. Ford comes across as awkward and sincere. The similarities between 1948 and now are haunting. Carter is in much the same situation as Thomas Dewey was then, and Ford has the lonely look of Harry Truman.
What is the future of television news?
The networks are running out of situation comedies, cop shows and Chers. They're drying up and they're desperate. That's why I predict we will see news shows dominate prime time in the next few years. There's no shortage of material. Look at it this way—the only thing that replenishes itself every day is the news.
Saved by the Bell Reunion
The hookups, the meltdowns, the memoires
The case reveals what was really going on what they think of each other now!
