OUR ENDANGERED AIRWAVES
Will Americans simply surrender a priceless national resource ?
Because that's what the airwaves used by the big commercial TV networks constitute: public property. Just like Yellowstone Park or protected areas of Florida's Everglades and the Grand Canyon, the broadcast frequencies over which NBC, ABC and CBS deliver their programming products belong to you, the viewer.
But unlike Yellowstone's forests, the airwaves are effectively being clearcut for commercial gain. Network owners are exploiting their frequencies -- loaned out to their stations free of charge by the government -- to maximize their own bottom lines, often in flagrant disregard of the regulations, policies and practices established over the past 64 years by the Federal Communications Commission and the pioneers of the American radio and television industry. The deal was always intended to go like this: the owners were to deliver a public service in return for the privileged position they were given -- without cost -- at the top of the nation's electronic media pyramid. Public service was the key objective of the Communications Act of 1934 and there are no less than 103 references to the public interest in today's Telecommunications Act.
Yet, as we've detailed in previous diaries, conglomerates like General Electric, the owners of NBC, are now squeezing the last gasps of quality and freedom from that key component of any network's service to Americans -- the news division. You, the viewer, lose out both as a consumer of news and as a citizen-shareholder in a vital part of the nation's free press. And don't forget: the NBC, CBS and ABC News Divisions became three of the richest and most capable organs of journalism in this country by way of your generosity. But now the network owners and too many of their highly-paid anchors would have you believe that you should turn to cable and new specialty channels or the internet if you crave some genuine national and global news coverage. They tell us: just let us get on with the business of driving up the ratings -- news is just like entertainment; the division is nothing more than a G.E.-styled Single Business Unit where profit is the top priority.
Oh yeah ? Consider this: "The basic purpose of American broadcasting is the development of an informed public opinion through the dissemination of news and ideas concerning the vital public issues of the day." That's the FCC in 1949. And this: "News, information and public affairs programs are the heart of broadcasting in the public interest." That was Mr. Newton Minow, John F. Kennedy's FCC Chairman, speaking in 1961. And this declaration from the U.S. Court of Appeals regarding the FCC's stewardship of the industry: "The Nation allows its air waves to be used a matter of privilege rather than of right. The companies which today are profiting so handsomely from radio and TV may in the end find it in their own best interest to treat their businesses as a public trust."
Yet the evidence proves that management cultures like G.E.'s are forsaking that trust, not serving it. An example: the recent struggle by journalists at NBC News to report Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt's angry condemnation of G.E.'s delays in cleaning up toxic waste sites. It took weeks of lobbying (and harsh criticism from quarters such as this Journal) before the News Division's G.E.-appointed management was shamed into caving in and allowing a better-late-than-never treatment of a story that had been front page news across the country. Elsewhere, NBC's foreign news staffers are bristling over the half-hearted response by management at to the current crisis in the Persian Gulf. The same executives who flooded London with a record 170 people to exploit the programming bonanza created by the death of Princess Diana were slow to scramble a few understaffed news gathering teams to the Gulf. Once again, they ceded the heart of the story to CNN. Evidently G.E.'s management team at NBC doesn't like the business prospects of the Baghdad affair. The result ? Americans have one less free news source to rely upon for timely, reliable information.
In view of these failings, how is this for an echo from the halls of regulatory power: "The fact that large audiences can be attracted by fourth-rate material does not acquit the broadcasting companies or the government (of responsibility) for use of this valuable and scarce resource... Thus far, television has failed to use its facilities adequately for educational and cultural purposes, and reform in its performance is urgent." That's from the report by President Eisenhower's Commission on National Goals back in 1960 -- the realization that corporate greed does violence to responsible programming is nothing new.
What is new is this radical and damaging departure from American broadcast practice: that the news divisions should cover only the soft or sensational stories that score quick ratings gains. That is a direct breach of the standards and regulations that once made America a leader in world news. So how do we turn things around ? How do we return to responsible commercial news programming where profit is earned with a quality product of which we can all be proud ? Two things have to happen. Journalists must become more assertive in regaining an appropriate influence in setting the day's news agenda at home and abroad. And viewers like you, the real owners of the airwaves, should exercise your right to tell the industrial tenants who are abusing your generosity just what you think of their revenue-driven programming.
At Skywriter we've come up with a simple device to help you do that.
It's an attachment to that other household appliance essential to any evening in front of the TV -- the refrigerator.Our fridge magnet lists the numbers of all three of your commercial network tenants, and you can get one just by sending us an email with your mailing address.
So next time you see a particularly maddening or misleading piece of psuedo-news programming, don't just reach for a cold one or a snack, call the network hotlines. The people in New York who answer the phones are employees, just like the journalists upstairs who yearn for free reporting. Believe me, from the ground up the networks are staffed by professional men and women who want nothing to do with their managements' brand of commercial censorship.
Your comments will be welcome. This country's real journalists want the same thing you do, namely the right to bear information. To gather it, report it and get it on home to the people who count most -- the people of the United States of America, the true owners of the nation's airwaves.