The First Amendment; Boston Community Med

WGBH Boston of cooperation with the Institute for Democratic communications at the School of Communications at Boston University now presents the First Amendment and a free people and examination of civil liberties in the media. In the 1970s and now here is the director of the Institute for democratic communication Dr. Bernard Reuben. My guest today are Ms. Margaret Asher's who's the director of the Boston Community Media Council and to prefer says William where the Boston University School of Public communication. Our subject is the work of the Boston Community Media Council. I see from your folder that it has several major goals. Right now one is upgrading of minority employees to decision making or improving minority programs greater sensitivity in disseminating minority new equal opportunity recruitment programs and so on. Also most of the radio stations and television stations and newspapers in the area belong.

Also the wire service. I guess the only major local radio newspaper that I don't see as belonging is the Boston Globe. Suppose I ask you the first question. Why is The Boston Globe not listed on your present members. The Boston Globe was active in that in our beginning saying they were people from the Boston Globe or who were instrumental in the coming about A B C M C in the middle and late 60s. Recently however the globe has had to curtail a lot of the activities that they had with minority groups and so on because they came under a lot of pressure during the desegregation period about their activities and so in order to ensure that they were totally objective and so on they are no longer full members of the CMC. They do however help us with our scholarship program. I see. Could you tell us a little bit about your current work. First I could talk around the structure of B.S. You see that might be helpful. B c m c is

made up of two major groups to me in the media caucus. There are people from top management levels in the television industry the radio industry and newspapers in the Boston area by top management I mean General Managers presidents publishers decision makers essentially and then from minority community. We have representation from this the black community the Hispanic community the Chinese community people who have leadership positions or access to a lot of information in the minority communities. The purpose of the CMC is to manage the services and the facilities and so on of the media with the needs of minority community groups to facilitate more information coming out of the minority communities to give people an understanding of the positive things that are happening in the community to make people understand what the real

problems and real concerns of the minority communities are and to figure out ways to use to utilize me to use resources to make the entire community entire Boston community aware of these concerns. So our activities. Trying to match that that particular goal you were getting none of it sounds like it's going to bring the heavens down doesn't sound particularly revolutionary why would the globe. You would have to pull up not the Herald. That I would really need for the globe to answer. I should say that we did in terms it is not revolutionary and so on. No it is more we try much more to get to identify specific goals or specific protein sources that have gotten coverage and figure out particular solutions to the problem of trying to figure out how to get that information out so that we we try to deal with things that we can actually help do to we can actually be a positive force and rather than just to look at it whatever reason program

in which we looked at women in communications. I wonder in regard to minority access to management posts or to good reportorial posts or good writing posts of any kind. What's your sense now about the present situation. Are black people Hispanic people and other minorities making it or are they just hanging sort of midway between making it and being excluded. I think that we have a tendency to think that there's been a lot more progress made and there is because minority people are so visible on the air. But in terms of decision making positions and so on we still do not have a large percentage of minority people in those kinds of positions. We don't have any minority people in ownership positions we do have in the city of Boston a black newspaper and then you know that's obviously owned by black

people and so on but that is not as in but anywhere near a large as a larger readership as say the Herald American really think there are two black station managers in the Boston area and other than that top management is predominantly white male. There are as there is a great push in the Hispanic community now to increase their act their access to positions in mind in the media excuse me there are several groups and most noted most notably is the Massachusetts mass Latino media group. And they are trying to make sure that Hispanic community gets more access. But basically there is a need for an upgrading of minorities from the positions that they have been able to achieve since the 60s into positions of decision more decision making. There's also a need to spread out the kinds of information that minorities it comes out of the minority community we have a tendency to spend to see that all that

information on a few programs minority programs primarily on the weekend during the public access time seven to eight which is not prime time by any stretch. And so it's very difficult for the entire community to see how minority communities news and someone fits in in a total perspective because it's always put off another time. You know what do you think of the particular problem of the segregation of minority news into special programming. I guess they can be arguments for it in terms of emphasis but I think my good ashers did make a point just now that unless it's also part of the general news the general overall perspective is lost. To the extent they have been this employment of minority group persons in the industry. I think it's pretty clear that came about as a result of the demonstrations and

street turmoil of the 1960s for the problem of decision making persons gaining access for them in the industry. I'd like to ask you Marketa asked her how is it going to take another period of the 60s a comparable period to make that further jump. In other words do the institutions which are multimillion dollar investments and are very much part of the status quo. Do they move simply out of goodwill and out of room for delegate to the concept of equality or do they move only when. They are forced by some pretty strong pressures. Well it seems to me that we have to at this point plan on some sort of combination of the two. I think that there are an awful lot of minority people in lower and middle echelon positions in the media so to say that they will have no

effect on trying to push themselves up internally would be to say that they're not going to be effective and I don't think that's true. But I also don't think that they can do it by themselves because the next level into trying to push into it is the position that is the level that will make a tremendous difference in policies and where money goes and that type of thing. So I would think that an awful lot of pressure from from the outside community not just the media community is going to be required. And I think that there's an awful lot of there are a lot of outlets now for people to do that. There are a lot of people who are trying to generate media pressure out of Washington. I mean the most famous group is Nicholas Johnson's group. But there are groups that are also trying doing that all over the country trying to make increased pressure and so on. Do. Well let me turn it over and we'll let you know about this question when you have a meeting of your media people. For example one of the recent guest on this program Crocker Snow

who is on the Boston Globe because they're no longer connected with the world. He's a he's a crack journalist and a very fine fine chap and some of these other people read like a who's who of the industry. Is this a sensitizing kind of a situation or is it an advisory situation or do you say this is the kind of thing that we are worried about and why don't you do something about it. Well I think it's I think it's all of those after meetings to think kinds of things happen. There are general discussions and there are working meetings so that the working meetings by working I mean we found follow up on and on things that we're already doing. The scholarship committee for example might well be involved in trying to make sure that we get the information out to schools and that type of thing. And then we will also be in the context of that be discussing key issues that come out of those kinds of working things we get into philosophical discussions to make

sure that the work that we do fit in with the kinds of needs that minority. Is it possible for us to get some sort of go around the corner. One of the discussions at a key key issue without telling us who said what more war and all the rest of it. But something that you remember as being important that went around the table in fact you have information on founded on a project that came out of one such discussion from this philosophical discussions about we've had several several philosophical discussions about the news that comes out of the minority communities not reflecting the leadership potential that is there. And we've had lengthy discussions about that that there's a lot of attention focused on crisis situations. A lot of attention focused on problems like you know we have the basic poverty problems and but there isn't a lot of attention focused on that on

minority communities attempts to change the conditions within our own community and there's not very much attention placed on the kinds of people who are there to provide leadership to change things not just for the minority community of Boston general. Ad of a discussion about that. We did do a press presentation for a group in the boy in Roxbury called the Southwest Carter LAN development coalition and they are primarily involved in trying to garner community activism to make sure that the land was cleared for I-95 got used for community for the communities that surround it. That's five communities to make plain Roxbury the south in Rossendale in Hyde Park. Six in Forest Hills So far well they have been extremely successful but they were having a difficult time getting the information out because one their issue is just so complex it turns out to be a 600 million dollar project and trying to explain how all the different issues that are involved in their project fit

together and why community support is necessary and so on is a very difficult task. And they were having a hard time getting media coverage of it because it was so difficult. It was an immediate thing all the time. It's recently become immediate because it's been announced that they will actually get a lot of this money and it will now be available. They're also talking about eighteen thousand five hundred jobs in the next 10 year period. So clearly there is the activism that they were trying to garner is for all of Boston and not just for minority communities. But it's difficult but the leadership of this organization does in fact come out of the black community. Well I'm going to throw a question really coming from your remarks. Bill we have something like the Park Plaza project in Boston It's never difficult to get information out even though it takes years even though very few people care sometimes. And even though there's a lot of private money being made or heard about why is it so difficult for the media to handle huge.

Open space of light project that will cost 600 million dollars over a decade that would involve 18000 jobs. Why is this so difficult for the media to handle that story at every stage. I think it's a so great it caught me looking down on people's capacity to. Read about and absorb the complexities of situations. It's a rationalization for a feeding area a journalistic responsibility. The the whole history of underdeveloped countries where there's been proper leadership shows that even where you have a quayside a literate population complex problems can be explained to the mass of a population. I don't think it's a legitimate excuse at all. I would like to ask Margaret Ashurst. Well I don't want to get away from the southwest corridor issue because it's very important I think you really meant to say community involvement rather than

support reading the literature and that's what she what you meant. Taking such a program to say brother on Channel 2 in this building some of the other programs on Channels 4 5 7 over minority nature. Do you find that the staff knows probably all those programs complain about inadequate budget. Do they even think getting proper support from their station managers or station management. I would say across the board that is a problem and I should say that I have myself worked my television station in the Boston area on minority for minority programs. And the problem is constantly that the budget gets cut back almost every year for every single program. And so what you end up with is a very limited budget which means that almost all of the minority programs with essentially the same form and

the two exceptions are say brother and black news. Most of the others are in the studio. Talk shows and that is the cheapest form of programming that you can get to. Another problem with that is that it's it is also what you also have a limited budget it's very difficult to get out into the community and because you can use film you can use video tape and so on. So that limits the kinds of discussions that you can have and it also limits the impact that your program has because if you're talking about poor housing conditions for example you can't really explain that you can't show people what it is that you're talking about so that you're you're limited in a lot more ways than just money. You know the argument that we always come back to is that because these programs do not. Make a lot of money on advertising because of low ratings and so on. That's why the budget gets cut back.

And that idea that we have incredible kinds of problems because like the argument that you know that it's based on the proposition that the poor people have so little money and that's their major problem. And when we get to see them with more money we'll help them or these these organizations make plenty of money these television and radio stations. It's a bogus argument is it not that they can sustain a community program that appears once a week. Well also the bases that they base that I mean on his ratings and the ratings do not and do not count minority people. You know there are there are very very few black people who get Count who have ratings books so that it's like an accurate way to deal with that particular audience anyway. And Edward R. Murrow once made a speech in which he said it's not for a Dane in the heavens that the networks or stations have to go on making more and more money every year. That's not. Guaranteed by the US Constitution. Well I went over some very weird ways. In a study I'm doing over the net worth of the parent company of the sea Radio Corporation

of America and I've forgotten what number of countries it deals in 63 or 73 foreign companies it owns book publishing and owns Random House the Random House and and some of the networks have investments such as The New York Yankees and Fender musical instrument company and whatnot. I wonder whether the old saw about money being the problem really can hold up and whether that should not now is not the time to in the interest of the First Amendment. Go before the FCC and say that radio stations and television networks are not goldmines. There has to be something returned. In theory that's already provided for by the FCC. I know this so you know. Yeah so it would seem to me that had to be some way to force the FCC to do it to make it a stronger commitment or something because theoretically that's what public access

time is supposed to be. You know the real you know the replacement of profit back into the station into the program. The other thing about limiting the programs in that way in the budget as well as on a specific time is that their responsibility increases as their resources decrease. At the moment the minority programs now have to not only give us basic information about what's happening in the community they also have to explain complex issues to us and they have to try and get us to more actively involved in things that require community support and they have to do this on a limited budget. So because they have less money and because all the information gets packed into a half hour show on every station once a week rather than being spread out the minority programs are put in the position of having to carry the entire media wait for the minority communities and that's the thing that is really so dangerous about it they get overloaded and then because they have so many different we response ability it's very difficult for them to be effective in any of them.

And if there's a political angle to it. Also there was a fellow I know his name very well I can only think of his last name Richardson who was at Channel 2 in the late 60s early Rae Richardson Richardson he later drowned after he was fired by Channel 2. Producer I guess his title was over say brother and he was quite independent minded and he was trying to do it and the station manager and became more and more dissatisfied with him and he allowed I think it was a Portuguese group. You know begged for it to come on and use some rather salty street language which he thought was intergroup to their viewpoint. He did not censor it. And in 1977 it would seem rather mild but in 1970 or thereabouts. The country was still pretending to be chaste and virginal and to look down on all profanity. And that was the excuse used to fire him and the protest

organized around that was not very effective it was not well organized and so Channel 2 got away with it. I'm not sure they get away with it today. What I'm saying is beside the budgetary problems are political problems that all the producers of all the shows that we're talking about don't have to face. Well regardless I don't know the facts of that particular situation so I can only listen and say. I'm listening and observing but I would say this that there has been a tremendous change in what stations will permit on the air what they will encourage. And I'm just wondering whether the typical minority programming is not so frozen like an old soap opera of the 1930s that maybe somebody ought to get a grant of some kind from some foundation and say we want to put on a half an hour and we want it on film and we want to go on locations

we want to go into kitchens and we want to go to factories and we want to see poets and we want to see the pioneers in each field and we want to have the color background all the rest of that kind of go on the table. Perhaps the minority programs don't have a large audience because they are these talk shows so much. I saw a program a few mornings ago about the American Indians. I believe it on channel 4 or 5 in the Boston area. It was 6:30 in the morning and it was a morning I was trying to find out whether we're going to have a blizzard so I turned on the television because no one should watch television or drink before six o'clock in the evening certainly if you do drink it all. But there was and I got fascinated I was trying to find what Tiger where you know using you waiting for the weather. And I was I was very disappointed that such a serious discussion between people who on that particular morning were discussing the American Indian Movement AIM came on when only people looking for their time or a blizzard would

be listening. This is not a typical though some of the programming decisions is it. And then they were put in they hand a report to the FCC that this was part of their community service programming. Well perhaps mentioning that it came out at that ungodly early hour. I want to throw a question at Margaret Asher's when we talk about the minority community there is no such thing as a minority community there are people who live in the general community whether they are Hispanic or black or white or Americans doesn't make any difference if you're running a news program. By golly you should run a news about all the things that are happening to the people in the community. Is the presence of all of these minority news programs another way of admitting by some news executives that they are unwilling or unable or just not going to at this particular time invest the resources and power in producing a news

program for the entire community. I think that you know I think I made that that was that that people have used it to that end. But it would be difficult to say that it started that way because the minority communities made a big stink to get you know everything that was wrong and they're right and people instead of providing that in addition to normal programming use that as an ex as an excuse to not involve to not include minority information in a program would be a more accurate way of putting it. There's nothing wrong with having programs for minorities know that there's a need for them to Troyes there are some discussions and some problems that really do have to be directed specifically to minority communities from minority people who have the information or who have access to information and so on. One young woman who was an eminent journalist said on a previous program it will be a breakthrough when an ugly woman gets to be the anchor

person on an evening news program meaning to say that she was objecting to so many pretty faces really being used to present news as if there was no human element behind it. You know there was you want to different kind of pretty face will give you that. Is there some truth to that I don't know. Yeah I would say that there is some truth to this period when this country was going through its periodic cycles of insanity somebody said that you could sell the American people steel wool for breakfast if you had enough pretty girls to have a title for there's nothing there's nothing wrong with some newscaster or a beauteous newscaster and I'm not referring to one sex or another and in today's world you don't know which sex you're talking to. There's nothing wrong to the attractiveness of the of the presenter. But when you see some of these people there's one young lady I won't mention have to be a young black woman.

I know that she goes to graduate school most of the week and she appears on the weekend delivering. She's charming she's poised she's ready she's like Walter Mondale who said we are ready we're ready to come out. She's like Walter Mondale who might have lost the election. Nobody's saying come on now and really use your talents to the fullest extent. One of the things one of the other things would be CMC is getting involved in. And I feel as a direct response to all these kinds of issues is alternative kinds of media rather than having minority people depend all the time on the large media things that really is going to be necessary for minority people to get an understanding of uses of other kinds of media. So one of the things that we're trying to do is establish a half inch videotape library so that to get people accustomed to the idea of producing programs of their own or collecting information on their own using using modern technology and so on for their own

purposes. And I would like this mass mass media group was responsible for putting close circuit television into a housing project that they have is not a project a housing development in the south and so that eventually they too will be able to use alternative sources of media to get information out to the community and I think that minority people really have to start getting into newsletters rather than flyers and newspapers rather than leaflets. And learning how to use all the different forms forms of media and not just constantly depend on obviously white dominated mass media all the time. I am very much interested in what you said and I think that the Boston Community Media Council should be much clearer to our listeners and I also want to thank William worthy. One never gets discouraged when talking about anything that is organic in leading it changes.

I think so much of what we've been discussing today is a changing situation and we may be on the very edge of an important new development new plateau for minority people and the media at least we hope so. This is going to droop in saying good night. Whatever bit of GBH radio and cooperation with the Institute for democratic holy cations at the School of Communications at Boston University has presented the First Amendment and a free people and examination of civil liberties in the media. In the 1970s this program was produced in the studios of WGBH Boston.