The First Amendment; Government And Media

The First Amendment and the Free People Weekly examination of civil liberties in the media in the 1970s produced by WGBH radio Boston in cooperation with the Institute for democratic communication at Boston University. The host of the program is the institute's director Dr. Broder Gruber. And delighted to have is my guest tonight Jonathan Moore the director of the Institute of Politics in the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. I like to bring you up to date on Jonathan's extensive background public affairs. He was the legislative system to United States senator Saltonstall worked in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations in the Defense and State Departments and was in the pre-convention camps of the rummy and Rockefeller campaigns in 1968. In addition to that he served does. Part of the Nixon administration along with Elliot Richardson as deputy assistant secretary of state as counselor to the Department of Health Education and Welfare and a

special assistant to the secretary of defense and his attorney assistant attorney general of the United States who among other things resigned as part of the group that couldn't take anymore in the so-called Saturday Night Massacre. So with those credentials especially with that last one I think you are eminently qualified to to bring us up to date on some of your feelings about the media and about the relationship to government. One of the most important things that you've done very recently Jonathan is been part of this group that produced the report of the New England conference on conflicts between the media and the law which work between September 1974 and September 976 This was funded in part by in large part by the Ford Foundation. It was a project which you as director of the Institute of Politics Worked with the Neiman Foundation and also a Harvard

University to produce. Jonathan what were some of the most important recommendations in that report live. Effort of the New England conference was to get judges and lawyers of different types and journalists together examining media conflicts from the point of view of each other's roles so that an appreciation for rights guaranteed under the Constitution. Beyond simply the First Amendment rights and an appreciation of the intense complexities of these conflicts would be better appreciated by all of these participants in the process so that they might be able to sort out less confrontation and hostility and more constructive.

Understanding of the rights and roles of others and we did this through holding a series of grassroots conferences involving these three sets of participants in each case throughout New England using actual cases where media law conflicts occurred and using a Socratic method where there was a teacher who is forcing the participants to recognise the roles and the obligations of others. And out of this we we came up out of this experience over an 18 month period we try to come up with some recommendations as to how to deal with conflicts between First Amendment rights in the one hand and fourth fifth sixth in the others we've got an obviously free press fair trial. We get into questions of invasions of privacy in the bill on the one hand and the people's right to know so-called On the other and we get into questions of how much rights did the government have to keep certain material confidential in secret for national security purposes such as the Pentagon Papers case.

We learned among other things that such consciousness raising efforts are useful. They seemed to produce greater understanding rather than more rigid positions. We also learned that a certain amount of conflict is inherently natural and valuable and that there is no way and there should be no way to clean up these roles and rights and obligations so everything is clearly compartmentalized and sort out there's just no way there has to be a dynamic of uncertainty end and tension hopefully not involving major conflict but the various sides have to work with one another to work out. Due process for all parties. And you're going to have to do that with a little bit of struggling a little to struggle a little bit of trouble from time to time. The Among you just mentioned three of the several recommendations that we came up with and I'll be very quick about them.

One was that educational programs undergraduate certainly but principally at the graduate level and perhaps in short course training which my institute incidentally has some experience in. For lawyers judges and journalists to learn more about the problems and the responsibilities and the obligations of the other sides be undertaken be designed and be and and be pursued a second recommendation was that media institutions or media organizations or whether it be one of the great networks or whether it be a major daily newspaper devise procedures processes internal to that organization no standards are being imposed now from the outside. Whereby conflicts between media rights and legal rights are addressed with as much care

and deliberation and sophistication within the media organization as possible so that for instance the reporter knows what the what the policies of the newspaper and his editors require of him in terms of what practices and what ethics practices he or she follows in ethics which he or she observed in the reporting of stories and on how to go about getting a story. And so that reporters when they come into the organization will receive some training and some orientation about what is expected from them so that the lawyers are able to integrate themselves into the process with the proper legal advice. When that is required when a hot story is being pursued it needs to be printed but certain ethical and and legal considerations have to be adequately examined if these other rights are going to be honored as well as the ROVs First Amendment right.

And the third and third recommendation which I'll mention is that we felt that individual media outlets should make more of an effort to criticize one another. That newspaper should criticize newspapers and broadcast enterprises should should criticize other broadcast enterprise now we're seeing a little bit more of that. From the broadcasts to the to the print side and vice a versa but we're not seeing print taking on print enough. And this was something which we will be a lot more healthy for the overall system. The present lack of criticism of this variety. I was struck by the last suggestion some years ago in terms of how how we have grown some years ago. CBS had a program you remember remember Jonathan called CBS News the press. I believe that was the title of it and Douglas Edwards was in effect the reader at the initiation of that program.

And all he did was read. I believe as Doug said read editorials that had appeared in the press. This of I think was in the late 50s and this will antagonize the newspaper people and so many others that CBS had to pull it off the air. Now I know that the press is a lot more interested in criticizing itself because some a critic of the Russians would say is very popular today in all fields. But is it willing enough. Or does it feel that its job always says its job is to criticize everybody else but shows an amazing thin skin. When you say anything about its own coverage do you think the MOTU are enough to accept that recommendation and do something that is really fruitful. Oh I'm not convinced that they are mature but I think that the that their maturation would be would be encouraged and would be enabled if they started out making a decision that we're going to do a little bit more of this

self-criticism than it's been in the past I'm not talking just about exercises where someone who has who is wholly contained and owned really within the individual media organisation now and then criticizes his own newspaper for instance for handling I give a new story a bit sloppily or or unfairly. I'm talking about going after your your competitor or or or your competitor in another another service area and in another market area. I think that if a decision were made to do well a little of this which is not the case today it would it would prove to be fun and it would prove to be not as troublesome or difficult as one might perceive it to be now. And. That that kind of exercise or that kind of effort would therefore grow and the maturing that you talk about would

grow along with it now. We both know that the national news Council in New York goes back to 973 began operations. It has had some effect. One of your recommendations is that you try to do this on a regional basis. That's correct. I'm not satisfied that the National Council has had sufficient effect although I support it heartily. When we get closer to the home front in any region. Do you think that the at the final line the publishers will claim freedom of the press or will they say we look back on the national news council experience it hasn't killed anybody so far and it's been useful Let's do that here. Well I think on the part of the press generally that is to march. Protectionism of the First Amendment. I think that if the press let me talk about the media generally

pursue their responsibilities their commerce their commitments as as journalists the way they have been trying to improve themselves. If they fight off formal legal efforts to constrain then there is no reason why they have to be so up tight and so sort of macho oriented and so defensive about constraining themselves or regulating themselves more than they do. I don't think that self-regulation even that term is a little too formal and a little too harsh for what I have in mind but some kind of a of a more systematic effort to. To influence their own behavior so as to improve it in these respects I don't think that will lead to extra forces which will

which will tend to constrain their first and right not to like the press is very weak and it certainly isn't very weak it may be sometimes unprofessional in certain coverage but it's not as weak as it pretends to be is it. Well obviously we're of the same mind. No I don't think so one of the things that bothers me about the press the most and I should say that I'm bothered because if anything I tend to be unduly romantic about the role that the media can play in a democratic society. I count on the media for really an extraordinarily influential and valuable role in our entire system of government. And that being the case I'm disappointed by them. They are either sloppy or and this is my basic point. Too arrogant and too self-righteous about the first man. I mean there is an attitude sometimes that the First Amendment comes first and everything else in the country in the Constitution comes afterwards.

There is an attitude that we have the moral right to make some very tough valued judgment decisions but nobody else has that right. And I given the extraordinary protection which the media has in our society under the First Amendment that the constitutional guarantee which is really unprecedented. I think that really requires the press to go to considerable extent to guard against that kind of self-righteousness that kind of defensiveness that we were talking about before. And I don't think that they're doing that enough today I think that they're going to be much stronger much more valuable and will be demonstrating just how much the First Amendment means to us not to you know not moving in the opposite direction at all. If that were the case it was I'm sure that on every major newspaper we have some some good ones in the country they'll be. Coterie of people who will agree with us and say we ought to take this approach

but they probably will be a variance with the business offices because the press is not. I have that I share your romanticism about the press the crushed hack reporter who yells in Stop the presses and so on and so forth. But the business manager will probably say no look we're a corporation. One of the problems is that we we don't recognise enough that the press is one of the cool part one of the major part of the corporate structure and sometimes within a newspaper or a television station. These decisions for more openness more candidness more self-criticism are not made because the administrative side dominates the reportorial side. This is certainly true of American television. Oh I think that's true and that's why one of our recommendations at least of the conference conflicts you can you know talk about internal procedures because of course we recognize it isn't just a reporter's problem it's the reporter and the editor and the business side and the management

all taken together. And these enterprises with those various and not altogether consistent fact doors and forces which make them up have a very very tough time just administering just managing themselves. I mean there are extraordinary creatures just looking at just being looked at and I worked in AGW and the idea of looking at a great network or a great newspaper from a managerial standpoint is really quite staggering. So I agree with you. On the other hand all the more reason for. A very mature and sophisticated process to be developed which which enable all those forces to be sorted out no specters to be. Maybe we ought to have a sensitivity session for controllers with a c o m t at the beginning of the word of newspapers and radio television stations and show them that the ledger books will not be hurled into the ocean. There will be some salvation even if we do this. May I turn Jonathan to another side of your career now. You're working in the Defense Department and in the State Department and in

h w another word you your work as a member of the federal government. Yes I'd like to refer to President Carter's new public attitude about what the United States stand for that we stand for human rights and because this is one of our essential messages. But on a practical basis I'd like to get your views as to whether we are being I don't want to put it crassly But are we being efficient in the way where. Disseminating our concept of human rights are we being if we being practical in the way we're sending our United Nations ambassador around and in the free speech that everybody is exhibiting in which the United States comes out as a as a very forceful nation but not one that you could necessarily

follow I'm unloading that question. And so you come right back at me and say none of the preceding is true. Well I think it's I think right now the human rights question is probably being handled quite efficiently. Let me make that a relative statement certainly more efficiently than it was handled at the beginning when it first emerged earlier in the Carter administration as one of his principal initiatives in the international area. If you take if you're looking at corridors emphasis on human rights in the international arena and you look at Embassador and Young's statements both in this country and abroad with sentiments there. I certainly and I know you applaud. We applaud the sentiments behind these days. Certainly much that's that's good to make clear and I do applaud the sims.

If you look at those two aspects of the Carter administration you immediately begin to think of the relationship between domestic politics and international relations and foreign policy and I think a certain allowance has got to be made so that. Foreign policy is not practiced in isolation from domestic politics. That kind of apartheid if you will that kind of separation leads us too easily into Vietnam's in my view. So once you argue that well there's got to be more of a relationship between what makes sense in terms of domestic politics and domestic policy and what the American people think that they want in the international area and the actual making of policy. Then you've got to be to be both logically proper and politically fair to acknowledge that there will be a considerable

relationship between the two at the political level level to wit what Andy Young is saying and what Carter is pursuing in terms of the human rights policy are both very very popular here in the United States. And I think that's I'm going to say something right after this but. But as far as we've gone I think that's fine. And I think that. Carter is doing just the right thing so far in attempting to communicate as well as he can with the American people and to build up as much popular support for him and his broad outlines of policy at this stage as he can. Now there's going to be some hope and it is going to be some hype and there's going to be public relations and all that. But if Carter cares about his leadership and the policies you would like to pursue he is obligated under a system of government to win the public support which will give him a chance of pursuing those policies and this kind of talk about Carter not knowing when the

campaign ended and being you know doing nothing but campaigning in the early days of his presidency is nonsense I mean if that's what he's doing that's what he should be doing to look at Andy Young's sort of modus operandi and the human rights policy in terms of its effect on international affairs. I have always felt that a broad philosophical rhetorical statement about the United States commitment to human rights was very valuable in terms of the conduct of our foreign policy abroad. I have also felt that privately and individual negotiations sometimes multilateral but mostly bilateral with countries and we felt were denying human rights. We ought to put the pressure on but when it got down to specifics and when it got down to programs do it more privately than publicly and in between these two extremes I thought that it was rather dangerous to operationalize where human rights applies and where it doesn't like we're going to shut off aid to these countries for these reasons

but we're not going to cut off aid to these countries which also violate human rights. For these reasons I think that Carter has backed off that now and he is pursuing his human rights initiative so-called more in the way that I am supporting and less in the way that was originally involved when this first began to hit and begin to become clear. And I think that young ambassador Andrew Young that is. Will probably constrain himself more than he has done up until up until now. That his behavior may cause us problems initially but it's going to one of some support in their family too. And I am not very concerned about that at this point.

It's too early in the administration to worry about that. I mean they've got a long haul to go on. When we talk about human rights a great many people overseas and that's why I say I wondered about the word efficient which is a terrible word I realize that but is it one that gets us right to grips with things a lot of people don't understand what we mean by freedom of the press. They don't understand what we mean by freedom of labor negotiations. And I have a hunch that so many of our statements will win the administration applause at home but have to be translated abroad even by people let's say by South Africans. I would assume that most of the white South Africans would like to find some way out. Of their of their problem. If it was humanly possible I suppose that they would like to find some reading from us some suggestion we are very powerful nation as to how to do that. I wonder whether they are helped in their internal politics by statements which sound better here over the United States airwaves

in terms of translating ability than they do there. I'm just not sure of that. I think that true for example in Andrew Young the ambassador at or at an airport in South Africa gets off the plane and gives a modest black power salute to the local black leader one of the few that managed to get through to him. What does it mean. You see it might mean things that it doesn't mean in Georgia or New York or Massachusetts. Well that that kind of behavior or that kind of pressure makes me a little uncomfortable. And when you're I mean if it could be argued that that young was doing that purely for the return politically the benefits politically back here then I would be even more upset about it than I am. What kind of pressure in terms of the efficiency of your actions and

with regard to what kind of effect you want to have in terms of international politics the kinds of pressures that you apply or don't apply apply you can you can argue and I don't know what effect that has that kind of behavior has in in South Africa. It it makes me uncomfortable but I'm really not prepared to say well certain kinds of pressures economic are OK on the South Africans but certain other kinds of political behavioral symbolic ont I don't know that and I would be I would be careful going back to my earlier points about a certain level of fit of Philip philosophical rhetoric being being fine but you know watch out as you try to operationalize it in terms of specifics when you're doing that in public. OK. Given the fact that I believe that that kind of activity by Andy Young makes me a little bit nervous but I'm not going to I'm not going to deny. Various kinds of pressures that the people who are responsible on a war in that role would like to apply.

Is it is it possible I'm not being entirely facetious that the Institute of Politics Nieman Foundation the Institute for democratic communication also such organizations should run training courses for new administrations in which people who are going into a new field especially that foreign policy field especially involving media overseas. I'm being serious now. Should should get six weeks off to to be briefed before they make any major statements before they fly around the world and declare. Well I think that they're getting pretty well briefed and they're also they're going to try some new things the current administration wants to play by by by different rules and to try to reset the perceptions of public policy problems in trying to mobilize a better support. I do think returning to earlier. Theme very briefly that we can run briefing sessions over short of a short term intensive variety for people in journalism who are very good journalists and very good craftsman but lack specific expertise.

You know areas of actual government policy and bureaucratic difficulties in making and implementing policy so that we got better reporting on government from our national media as distinct from just good sort of dramatic reporting on politics. Well that's that's certainly is a good statement to end on I don't think you could have done better Jonathan Warren I appreciated very much for your candid comments tonight this has been a driven saying good night. The First Amendment and a free people a weekly examination of civil liberties and the media in 1978. The program is produced in cooperation with the Institute for democratic communication at Boston University by WGBH radio Boston which is solely responsible for its content. This is the station program exchange.

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