WGBH Journal; Media Ethics: Dr. Everett Parker: The Fairness Doctrine

We are out. But I can guarantee our next speaker will generate some excitement. Everett Parker has done. Has done that all his professional life and I think it's safe to say that he and the office of communication of the United Church of Christ of which he is director have done more to gain access for minorities in the media both in jobs and in programming than any other single group in the country. It was his office that brought about the landmark ruling of the United States Circuit Court of Appeals that vacated the license of station Beatty in Jackson Mississippi because its owners had systematically discriminated against blacks in his programming. The tool that the office of communication has used in many of its actions to ensure fair treatment of minorities by broadcasting stations is the fairness doctrine promulgated by the Federal Communications Commission. It's a controversial doctrine that's

bound to stir debate in this conference. I'm proud to introduce Dr. Parker as a friend and colleague of many years to present you his interpretation of the Fairness Doctrine. Parker. Thank you John. I do have to make one addition to what you said our concern has been for minorities and women. And I think we can show that. Both have been helped. Friends. The. Concept of concept of fairness. Is as old as the American system of broadcasting. It was first enunciated in 1927 by the Federal Radio commission and then approved by the courts in 1929 in the Great Lakes Broadcasting Company case. It was established in that case that and I quote public interest requires ample

play for the free and fair competition of opposing views on the air. Broadcast regulation had begun in 1927 when the fledgling commercial operators of being all of them as they are now went to Congress to beg for government oversight that would stop them from stealing each other's frequencies. Well they got what they wanted. And in the process about one hundred sixty stations were silenced most of them operated by churches schools and other nonprofit organizations. But since the broadcasters had come running to Congress Congress decided it would have something to say about things. And it recognized then. And has held ever since. That the airwaves are the common property of all of us. Congress required the few who were lucky enough to get licenses at that time. To operate their stations as a public trustee. And to provide

time to the many who were denied licenses so that that many of us the vast majority could discuss public concerns. One of the problems in talking about the fairness doctrine is that very few people even broadcasting executives understand its purposes and even fewer understand its practical operation. If one listened only to the industry and congressional hoopla against it one would believe that the Fairness Doctrine is a system for bureaucratic regulation of network news. Actually it has little to do. Either with networks or with new. The Fairness Doctrine is simplicity itself. The Federal Communications Commission directs stations this is their words to afford reasonable opportunity for the discussion of conflicting views on issues of public importance. Now in plain English. The fairness doctrine

requires two things. Firstly every radio and television station. Must provide a reasonable portion of its broadcast time for the discussion of controversial issues of public importance. Secondly whatever issues a station raises it must give. A balanced presentation of those view. Now that doesn't mean balance in the individual program. As I heard to my sorrow a distinguished journalist claim I'm one of the panels this morning. It means balance in the overall production of the station. Now there are very few broadcasters who disagree in principle with this requirement to present controversial issues and to present a multiplicity of view. But they grumble about having governmental officials involved in interpretating and enforcing the dock. Like most government regulations the fairness doctrine leads to many fine distinctions and a great

deal of hairsplitting particularly when the regulated industry wants to tread very close to the line. As broadcasters do. But you know this is a normal burden of doing business. The biggest outcry though is that the Fairness Doctrine chills discussion and intimidates journalists. Now this is poppycock. The affirmative obligation placed upon stations to cover controversial issues is the chief reason that most broadcasters hire journalists. If it wasn't for the Fairness Doctrine it's likely that any serious journalist would have to become a script writer for Norman Lear or one of the other factories in Hollywood. If he or she wanted to treat important public questions on the air. The FCC. Receives about 2000 fairness complaints a year. Fewer than 3 percent of these complaints are against networks and fewer than 1 percent against network news. The great majority of the requests asked for

time to answer station editorials. Or attacks. Or opinions on call in programs or on paid opinion programs such as those of Billy James Hargus and Karl McIntyre. Just last week the well-heeled Conservative Union began a television blitz against the Panama Canal story. In such instances journalism becomes irrelevant. Decisions about program balance are left to the times sales. There is no real reason to believe that broadcasters will balance such paid programming on controversial issues unless the FCC requires them to do so. Now the FCC How does it respond. Well it writes about one hundred fifty letters a year asking stations to respond to fairness complaints not to provide time on the air but to just write back to the commission. Since there are nearly eight thousand broadcasting

stations and can readily be seen that the typical station would answer a complaint about once 80 years and less than that. When we take into account the fact that a few stations. Such as those that carry Dr McIntire receive the vast majority of the complaints. Most broadcast stations have never had to answer a fairness complaint and never will have to answer a fairness complaint. Only about 5 complaints a year. Are sustained by the FCC. This means that the average station will be directed to provide time for opposing viewpoints. About once in every 1000 years. Now that's not a very frightening prospect is it. Balance that. Against the timidity of broadcasters who shy away from controversy on the air under pressure from advertisers and their own salesman who are afraid the controversy will affect audience ratings. Without the Fairness Doctrine probably a majority of licensees would avoid

controversy altogether. And without Section 326 they would avoid putting political candidates on the air all together. Now let me give you an example of broadcaster duplicity on this matter of dealing with controversial issues. This is recent. Recently the FCC in one of its rare enforcements of the Fairness Doctrine required a station in West Virginia to broadcast a program on strip mining that had been prepared by Representative. Patsy Mink and which it had previously refused to air. The station. In reply to the complaint had blandly informed the FCC that it had a policy never to deal with the issue of script binding because it might become divisive. When I have today. Many radio stations broadcast only automated programs. They insert commercial announcements into a day long tape that is supplied by a program form a format syndicate.

These licensees. Have come to believe that they can get away with being only sellers of time within a canned music. Format and indeed a station in New York City. Actually petition the FCC to be relieved of any obligation to broadcast news opinion and other public affairs programs in spite of the fact that they are required to ascertain the needs of New York City and we have a few more needs in most other places not including Boston of course. Now the networks avoid controversy even more than do the local stations. And they do this by refraining from editorializing. But networks have audiences in the tens of millions. And so one might therefore expect that they would have great difficulty with the fairness doctrine and indeed when you talk to them they say that they do. However to the best of my knowledge.

Neither CBS or ABC has ever been directed by the Commission to provide opposing views to viewpoints expressed by them. NBC has had two brushes with the fairness doctrine. Once when Chet Huntley editorialized against a meat inspection bill without revealing his financial interest in a large packing house. And the second time in the pensions case when the management of the network decided to parlay a routine news decision into a court test of an FCC ruling that they should present views that were counter to those in their documentary now they weren't asked to present the views in the documentary but they were asked to give about a minute on the Today show to give the other view on pensions and they didn't want to do that. Obviously neither of these episodes represented a daily problem of network news departments. Much more serious is the provision in the Public Broadcasting Act that prohibits educational stations from

editorializing and does require internal balance with within each program that deals with a controversial issue. Now in requiring this in the act. Congress has created an invidious rival on free speech in television and radio and one that I think is clearly unconstitutional. If somebody would take it to the Supreme Court. Broadcasters have another argument against the Fairness Doctrine. They claim there's no scarcity of stations anymore. You know there are supposedly it's not true anymore but a few years ago they could claim that there were more radio stations than there are newspapers. And. That therefore there is no fairness doctrine needed. While in 1968. The networks hired some of the most eminent lawyers in the United States to try that argument out on the Supreme Court. In the famous Red Lion case. The court held against them in a unanimous decision 8 to none

it pointed out that there are far more people who would like to obtain broadcast licenses. Then there are frequencies available. And you see that's the issue not whether there are more stations and there are newspapers or fewer or if there was only one newspaper left it wouldn't make any difference. The court held this. It is idle to posit an unbridgeable First Amendment right to broadcast. Comparable to the right of every individual to speak write or publish. The people as a whole retain their interest in free speech by radio and their collective right to have the medium function consistently with the ends and purposes of the First Amendment. It is the right of the viewers and listeners not the right of the broadcasters which is paramount. And that goes back to the basic interpretation of the First Amendment which was put in there by the framers of the

Constitution who meant to have the marketplace open to all forms of opinion so that the people could have the information they need to make decisions on ballot issues. The real reason why the networks and many local stations oppose the Fairness Doctrine is money. The networks are in the entertainment business no matter what they may tell you about their news departments and their documentary departments and so forth. That's where the money is. Is in the entertainment shows and everything else is incidental. William S. Paley is reported and never denied when I'm on a panel with a CBS representative to regularly and he regularly claims that the Fairness Doctrine is a bright line free speech. He is reported to regularly demand that the prophets of CBS increase 20 percent every year. Now that kind of policy doesn't leave much time available to afford reasonable opportunity for

the discussion of conflicting views on issues of public importance. This season the networks of thrown aside all pretense of serving the public interest with programs that deal with vital controversial issues in their dog eat dog battle for the number one spot and the biggest dollar in prime time entertainment programming. They've frankly announced that they will not schedule documentaries and news specials and I've heard that they're even cutting down on the wonderful work that Bill Moyers has done and I hope you all saw is terrific documentary on the Panama Canal treaty one of the distinguished things in broadcasting this year. And of course this. Cut is in the face of the fact that the networks which are the most profitable business in America the post profitable business that ever existed had a 70 percent increase in profit last year. They're looking for one hundred twenty there. Furthermore. The networks

pitch their prime time entertainment to a minority of less than 40 percent of the population and a minority that shrinking. And that's the people between 18 and 49 years old who are affluent enough to buy the good life that's in the packaged goods that are depicted in the commercials. Network policy makers feed these people a steady diet of sports violence explicit sex. Evidently in the belief that they are turned off. By ballot and economic issues that affect them vitally and pro by programs that may be culturally enriching. Equally alarming is the way in which the networks are transforming news into entertainment on such shows as today. And Good Morning America. Local stations including those that are licensed to the networks are even worse. Prostitute hours. News with their corny humor that's

required of everybody on the local news program. And there are many feature formats that are mass produced by outside manipulators like Megan. When there is public outcry against such excesses the broadcasters claim free speech privileges. Now it's hard to understand. Why ABC and NBC and so many stations make a mockery of news when the more progressive stations are using the new miniature rise be Quitman to do imaginative exciting on the spot coverage and they're making a lot of money out of it. Now turning to broadcast journalism this is a meeting about journalists broadcast journalists sometimes complain about the chilling effect of working under a system. Where what is reported may later be challenge by opposing view. As John O'Connor has pointed out in one of his columns in The Times no one in

journalism print or electronic likes to be challenged and all journalists want to maintain control over their own product. Don't we all. But despite the best of intentions journalists do make outright errors and wrong interpretations. And on the air. There can be biased nuances. I saw the MacNeil-Lehrer Report of a few nights ago when Loomis the head of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting claimed that he wasn't connected with Richard Nixon. The expression on Lehrer's face he didn't have to say anything. See. And that kind of thing happens all the time. Furthermore the bulletin type. Of reporting that is typical of all news on the air. Omits diversity of opinion. The problem with broadcast journalism is that it has not developed the Op-Ed page concept that Congress meant it to have and that is available now in many of our better newspapers.

But I just. Say look at the corrections that appear every day in the New York Times now that they're publishing corrections for their mistakes or the varied and often opposing viewpoints that are represented when a news paper presents a story in detail. Broadcast journalism has not developed equally open and adequate mechanisms that give opposing viewpoints the opportunity to be aired. Nor is there any indication that corporate policy makers have any interest in providing such. Mechanisms to give. Access to the air to a multiplicity of view. The First Amendment was devised to protect the right of the people to speak freely and to circulate their ideas widely. The framers of the First Amendment never contemplated a monopoly on the effective means of circulating information and ideas especially. Such a monopoly

as exists in the person of television and the television networks being the chief purveyors of information and entertainment and taste setting standards. Nor did the framers mean to establish a self appointed class of individuals called journalists who can take on the role of sole arbiters of what is true and worthwhile for the rest of the people to know. Our society is increasingly dependent. Upon. Electronic media to disseminate ideas and to provide a forum for the debate of issues. Free speech requires access to the forum where speech can be heard. And therefore the people as a whole must have access to the electronic media. A journalist has an important role to seek out and expose subject matter. But having done this the journalists cannot insist that his or her exposition is the last word. It's the beginning not the end of the democratic process of debate and

problem solving. Unfortunately there are some broadcasters who think their decisions should be final. And irreversible they claim and immunity from review and criticism that might well of them barrister James the First. Now I don't claim that the Fairness Doctrine or any doctrine is perfect. I pointed out that improvements need to be made in the way in which the public forum is handled by broadcasters. Similar improvements are needed in the way in which the Fairness Doctrine is regulated by the Federal Communications Commission and I could spend the afternoon on that. However no progress is going to be made. Until broadcasters acknowledge that they do have responsibility to carry the views of others and they like all public trustees are accountable for the way in which they carry out their responsibilities. Now it's possible for our present system. To support the kind of public

access that our society needs. It's corporate greed that prevents it. And so if the present masters of our broadcast media are on able are unwilling to meet these needs of our society to put these needs above their lust for profit. Then the system is a threat to all of us. And we may have to change it. And while broadcasters won't admit it. Please be assured that the Congress can do it any time that they're pleased to pass another law. Although the time is very limited. I'm sure that very splendid rendition I must say that everybody agrees with you. There is a moderator on that subject but would

I ask if there are one or two people who want to question user. Like. You. The thing that I would add is. That. The FCC. Take seriously they have taken seriously or did when Dean Birch was chairman they came in they grabbed it that they would take seriously serious fairness complaints. And. Some of them may have to be adjudicated in the courts. The NBC pension case did not set a precedent. The case of the family viewing hour does not set a precedent it's an individual thing. And I think the courts are inclined. To take these First Amendment cases

on a case by case basis I wish the FCC would too and more seriously all the FCC has to do is. Is look into fairness complaints carefully and broadcasters are going to give more people access to the air. The newspapers are giving more people access to the air than they did before and they're not required to do it except that so many of the broadcasting stations are getting a little worried. Congressman first. With. With. With. One. With.

With. With. Since I. Replied to Fred in the New York Times Magazine and he and I don't agree on this issue that it isn't the issue as to what. The man who was maligned and red line was or who supported him. Or anything like that the fact is that he was attacked. And called the Communists and the courts have held her say that that is libelous. And. The FCC quite rightly held that he should have time to reply on that. See there's another portion of the Fairness Doctrine. And it's very very limited. That's the personal attack. It says when in the course

of the discussion of a controversial issue. A person or organization is attacked directly. That that that the station should inform the person of the attack. And give. Adequate time for reply. That's all that it is. Doesn't apply to heads of foreign governments or anything like that. Now he was a forgotten his name for the moment but he was. Fred Cook Yes he was attacked. And it was a clear Altmann shut case and when the when Norris the licensee of Red Lion and Karl McIntyre decided to make it decided to make a big court case. Then the the networks got scared and they ended their their case in the Seventh Circuit in Chicago. And. So that they could pull a red herring across the Red Lion case just as Fred is trying to pull a red herring across. And they we went into that cases intervenors. And if you will read the brief that we filed

in the Supreme Court you will read the decision you'll find that the wording is very close. And the fact is that. The Fairness Doctrine. Protects. The little. You know Miranda. Which is one of the most protected decisions in Supreme Court history was made for a common criminal. And so you really can't use that argument that just because somebody is affiliated with somebody. His or her citizenship rights are therefore set aside. And. In Red Lion that was the case. The rights not the affiliation and whether or not. He was supported by the Democratic Party. Makes no difference. One more question. Well let me give you an example of what we're doing at this time.

In relation to the program called so. Which is specific along the lines you're talking about. There were some people that tried to get so kept off the air. I should think ABC would have been the leaders of them having watched. It's getting a big share of the audience because of the hoopla before him but. Because there's been so much concern in local communities. The National Council of Churches and United Methodist Church. The Roman Catholic churches and the office of communication of the United Church of Christ. Have. Had a very careful legal analysis made. Of the controversial issues of public importance that are raised in that program. And the treatment of the U.S. transfer just as I'm almost sexuality. You can go down the line now where we have have had prepared by one of the top. Broadcast lawyers in the country a legal memorandum as to violations of the Fairness

Doctrine in that program. And we are are giving this to two local groups that want to go to stations and saying to them now don't go in there and tell them they have to take the program off the air. It's up to them whether they keep it on the air the sole responsibility is in the local station whether it carries something or not. But do go away and point out. The. Violations of the Fairness Doctrine and ask for time to have other view on those particular issues because they are such important issues.