The First Amendment; Ned Sherman

WGBH Boston in cooperation with the Institute for Democratic communications at the School of Communication just 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 Rubin. My guest for tonight's program is Mr. Newman the associate director of the national news Council. Now it is an old hand in press problems and his job right at the moment on the council which is now headed by Norman Isaacs also a very well-known figure in press affairs and a good journalist too is to be objective. If this is the best way to put it in ed about the press and to be available for the hearing of complaints brought to you by individual citizens private groups. Anybody anybody when they think that there is something amiss in the way a newspaper handles

a story or the way a radio or television station magazine handles a report. It might even be the use of words because I remember in one case that you worked on there was a complaint about the use of certain words on an abortion story. You found the complaint not justified 974 But certainly you gave it the the greatest study and and your program for ever and I would imagine a program of how you label people and do you label them gratuitously they can that complaint that you mentioned concern whether Catholics were being labeled gratuitously in stories about anti-abortion The council was right up here at Boston University that day meeting and. We spent I think about three hours discussing gratuitous labeling before we let the New York Times go on that one. Well actually our I sat in on the conversation and of course I won't say a word about it but there was. There was a difference of opinion at times between people on the

council hearing it who were from different parts of the country and one said that's quite normal for my kind of journalism the other one said that's kind of absurd for mine. But you reach a consensus of opinion. Nat tell us about some of the more recent work of the council some of the things you're looking into. I think what's happened with the news Council which does as you suggested quite rightly listen to complaints from anyone about press performance that is accuracy in fairness on the part of the Press Council lately has been very concerned with what we consider to be free press issues which also sometimes come to us in the form of complaints. We were happy to see that a paper in Florida the Fort Lauderdale news. Went to the news Council for relief when it found that a medical society down there had promulgated a code of ethics which really made it impossible for the newspapers of the area Broward County in Florida to be able to talk to individual doctors about anything.

They said everything had to be cleared with the medical society. Apparently there had been some difficulties with individual doctors and the Broward County Medical Association put out this very restrictive code. The paper said this is an intrusion on our ability to get the news the Council not only said that they said it was a form of censorship denounced it. And I think within two and a half weeks or so of the council's decision and the county medical code was modified. Now that we consider to be important. Matter even though it was local in nature it was watched all over the country the A.M.A. and others had to monitor and watch that one very closely because of the fact that there was there were rumblings about codes like this developing in other parts of the country. Now we think perhaps our decision will help to head off that kind of restriction and that's one of the areas that council is enormously concerned with now so that if we're talking about what the council does I think that's an area that we have moved into.

I know the council has no official governmental connection at all. It operates pretty much all the emphasis on persuasion. It's to try to persuade media members to follow certain lines of action. But it couldn't do anything about it if they didn't follow that line of action precisely the the the good part about it is that the council which talks about a free press all the time practices what it preaches in that we meet our decisions have no weight except the weight that is given to them by the press itself that is if it were covered and reported on. Then people know what we did if no one reports on us and the council is publishing for its own satisfaction and that's the extent of it. And that's exactly the way we want to because. The reason the council came into being quite frankly was that there was a climate in the mid 70s as you know early 70s of attempting to. Impose regulation on the press. In both television and the print press

so that the real problem as we saw it when we came into being was how to respond to a public concern about the press's credibility on one hand without imposing on the freedom of the press. On the other and I think we've done it. I hope we've done it rather well so that's a delicate balance. The York Times for example is not easily persuaded that it ought to be a full partner in your in your work not only a full partner but any partner. Of course that's their privilege under the white right. And we while we are unhappy and we feel. I'm sure privately and publicly that the Times is is not being responsive in this particular matter too. An important aspect of public concern about the press that's their business. That's our feeling and we would never have it any other way I mean that's exactly why we feel the Times is wrong because we are not trying to impose on them or any one else a standard of conduct for the press we're very pleased that

that CBS became the first major national public publication I'll call it that I mean it's a huge television network to outright endorse the work of the national news Council they've just done that before long time the electronic people were especially leery weren't they. Well they're worried because they always have one eye cast at the FCC and they're afraid that if we're there we become just one more. Discovery ground for the FCC we have been very scrupulous about not being a discovery ground for the FCC. Well if your work was as active as the FCC is we'd all be asleep and happily it's not it's not. There was a case that interested me Victor Lasky case back in 74 I believe he was the chap that did that first Kennedy expose a book he did the sorry I can't think of the name of it right now but he did have what I would consider to be essentially a hatchet Joe Hagin A-T. Well at any rate he was a columnist for the North American news Alliance just before the 1972 election. Let me not say anymore tell us a little more about what happened at the time was that

Lasky. Accepted money supply supposedly to write some speeches and other material from the Committee to Re-elect the President creep. Credit $20000 $20000 worth of money at the same time he continued to write what was supposedly opinion columns to be sure but we would hope uncolored of opinion columns on the subject of politics for the North American news a lot more than North American is paralyzed now. What happened was that this somehow surfaced in the whole Watergate. Hearings. It just came up one day and somebody mentioned it and I think it was Jeb Magruder that brought it to light. Well the National Conference of editorial writers rightly was concerned with this. Here were readers they felt possibly being deceived possibly the appearance of deception was there. And they came to us and said Would you look at this as a possible conflict of interest. We did look at it as a possible conflict of interest and decided they were

quite justified in their concerns and out of the decision came a. Cannon from the NCW I hate to call it that I mean it was a suggestion I suppose in the NCW that one syndicates inform their subscribers about whether someone has an outside connection that the writer himself should do so each time that he writes on the subject and that furthermore the newspaper that now publishes that column should further inform their readers so that there is a cabbie attempt or as you look at Mr last he's come no one said that Mr Laskey ever wrote a column which forwarded the work that he was doing for Craig. On the other hand there is every possibility that that could have happened given the circumstances and no one would have known about it. Well you certainly couldn't influence my opinion with $20000 and I don't know of anybody else who would be so swayed. Let me let me go on there was another bit of circumlocution which didn't affect the council but the explanations given

by one of the Rockefeller Brothers the banker brother as to how an attack upon Arthur Goldberg from a Supreme Court justice was a range was I would give it if I was Senator Proxmire the Golden Fleece. Yeah word for for elocution but that kind of thing is not unusual in the press even though we live we can pin down a single case that happens and it's nice to pin down the cases when they happen as my feeling about it I think you do and that's why I was good in the Lasky case and see E-W said something general. Subsequently I must say that since that time I have noticed a number of con the saying. I went to China on behalf of this group and now here's my card. Well I think that's fine because you may know that this particular group had a special interest in why it went to China or why it did something else. And that is something that didn't occur widely before Bill Buckley wrote a column and in which he didn't acknowledge his connection with something and subsequently admitted error in not making that acknowledgement.

And it was because of this same NCEA w pressure resulting from the last will there was a recent flap in the New York City area at WMC a over a very gray episode and joyous promotion and so there is and there that's crosses the line into advertising. And while I think maybe the council would have dealt with something like that had it been brought to its attention it's that there's a slight fine line of difference in that the other thing is all allegedly in within the editorial I noticed in one case when it dealt with advertising you said we. We don't find substance here for our interest but we we refer the complainant to the national advertising association I consider that a bit of a cop out I might kill you. The council wasn't sure how to deal with that one. Well sometimes as long as you and I don't mean that I think that the advertising review board wouldn't do anything. But I think that the council can say something a little more strongly and I think that's one of the things about the national news Council and in bringing it up today that you find it won't do now. Well I will not go under issues now trying to take I find your candor refreshing and this gives me a renewed enthusiasm for the council which was high to start with. Let me ask you a question.

Norman you counsel over the first period two or three years was not too notable for digging into First Amendment issues on the basis of its own initiative is that situation now changing that the judge has stepped down and Mr. Norman Isaacs has become the new director. As you know Bernard Norman Isaacs is a guy who's been. For ever out front on First Amendment issues he's a former head of the American Society of Newspaper Editors. American newspaper publishes AP managing editors Association a man who's very much been in the forefront of free press issues I remember that one when Spiro Agnew first spoke out about the so-called conspiracy of the press and I guess in 1989 in Des Moines it was Norman Isaacs who I think made the most immediate did not see a Tory. Response to him and he kept it up. I mean he didn't just make one comment and he became a spokesman.

One of the principal spokesman I was doing public television at the time and we did a panel with Norman Isaacs and Fred Friendly and some Nixon people Frank Shakespear and others on this very subject and Norman was incredibly out front and so therefore the council has begun to take a different turn what they're doing is not only monitoring being concerned with a lot of free press issues we have a big file now and a matter of. Watching with great care some of these intrusions court orders on prior restraint which is certainly a First Amendment concern. The council last year Interesting enough Bill Rusher certainly one of our conservative members the publisher of The National Review and I went down and got some real assurances from George Bush at the CIA at the CIA's employment of American journalists working for American news organizations would stop that nobody had been able to achieve that was certainly a First Amendment issue we're still watching that CIA situation in the light of some recent revelations about their publication of books covertly

overseas and then seeing that they get peddled here domestically in the United States I think that's going to be a matter of concern because it is a direct violation of the law which we are yet to see are used to the U.S. are propagandizing within Well the council hasn't had time to look at but I suspect the council will look at it and more than look askance at something like that. In regard to books you mentioned books you have actually started to be declarative in a sense in that you have supported Professor Benno C. Schmidt professor of law at Columbia University who has recently had a book published by Praeger in association with the national news Council on access and freedom of the press. Is that something that reflects a change of mood or you know that that showed that we were always concerned with First Amendment issues but that we also learned something about dealing with academics when we went to Benno Schmidt in the early part of 1974 the time when there was a very

famous case pending in the Supreme Court to NATO versus the Miami Herald and the question of whether a newspaper had to give right of reply space to two men allegedly defamed. Yes and we said to Ben all we want to get a position on this thing before the Supreme Court makes a decision in this thing we we don't want to be a friend of the court but we want to say something and. Then I found that as he got into the subject there was an enormous untapped area in terms of freedom of the press versus public access eventual named his book and we. We deferred a short term statement for a book. And I what I meant by saying that you know you learn something about academics and particularly law academics. You either give them an absolute deadline or you probably wind up with a book. Well that that's quite natural an excellent book by the way and I didn't mean to despair at it is an excellent book that's quite natural because there are there are two stages of reply when there is a press problem especially First Amendment press probably the first age probably is to

reach a conclusion based upon all the precedents that you can find and your own intellect. And the second stage is to say I'd better not do that that way again if this is a generic problem and I'd better come up with every every bit of information that I can. It's possible that you can do it both ways now the Institute of which you are a member of our board. Super Democratic communication we want to do it both ways. These programs constitute an effective running re-architecting we do studies and so on. Certainly there is certainly that can be done both ways and in this case my only regret was that the council did not get on the record before the tornado decision. The book is a fine piece of work and it will always stand I think as an excellent reference work in terms of public access and the council is moving more and more to make short precise statements on something before it goes in the long term look at things. We have a lot of issues that keep surfacing. The issue of checkbook journalism keeps coming up in the news. We we had a case involving an interview

that CBS paid for with H.R. Haldeman the Mike Wallace interview in which there was quite a public flap over whether this was a form of checkbook journalism that government officials and X government officials were going to wait around for the highest bidder before they let go some little tidbit that they had. Nixon is doing this yes and they're going with David Frost that's what you should leave people a little bit as a gas then at the the holier than thou and I think wholly unjustified attitude that that Sorenson should not have published what he published with government papers when he didn't do any of this he did not attempt to to make use for profit. Government information and the fact that he revealed it was even more interesting but the fact is that checkbook journalism continues to surface and we just completed a case a very interesting one in which a man by the name of Cooke a former White House aide during the Nixon period and now into an executive lucky to craft said to us

that an interview that John Dean did on The Today Show which was later used on the NBC Nightly News in a different form was a form of checkbook journalism in that NBC at one time had an option on the John Dean book for in terms of television usage or interview or other purposes and had made a seventy five hundred dollar commitment. Well the the council found that it was rather murky what the NBC commitment was. And as you probably know CBS eventually wound up with the Dean. Book so it's was ard to confuse them of checkbook journalism when they didn't even wind up with the with the final options but Dean did appear on the air and there was some appearance of concern and one of our members eat his grain and wrote a very strong dissent in which he cautioned that the networks must be much more upfront about. What is actually going on between them and a self-interested political figure such as John Dean on the merits of the man's complaint

which he also said he had not been interviewed properly and that there were things that were inaccurate in Dean's comments the council did not uphold him on the ground that he refused to be interviewed on the record. The reason the council could make a clear cut decision on the checkbook journalism was that apparently he didn't provide us with enough of the specific information either. Nevertheless that's a I think that's a First Amendment concern of a different sort when the press starts to pay. Political figures for exclusive statements. I'm coming around to the opinion after a good deal of research that. A new First Amendment issues coming into being and that is the right of advertising doctors lawyers accountants eyeglass sellers optometry stores that sort of thing and there was a recent case of a pharmacist in Virginia which I don't know if you know about last year which was decided by the Supreme Court which is the Supreme Court said that he had every right to to advertise

product X at price Y and then they went on to say that he doesn't want to editorialize and whatnot but I think he has every right within the limits of due process and not defaming or telling distortions to editorialize what your view as not as a no member of the council Yeah I guess I get my my my view if I if I read it correctly from all the things that I've studied but primarily from someone who was with the counsel at one time it was our first chairman Roger trainer. Raja trainer is certainly one of the most well-known constitutional scholars in the country the former chief justice of the state of California and Roger used to say to the council I don't see that there's anything in the First Amendment that prevents someone particularly a publication of someone who uses a form of publication from saying any damn thing that they please. By the same token he said I don't see anything in the Constitution it says the public has a right to know anything. Right so I mean I take the

position that it's that it may be the most restrictive position in a way and that if I say that you can say anything. That they are that they're really takes the consequences. That's right the redress has to come from other forms other than the First Amendment First Amendment I think is a pure thing it says free expression. If there are ways to counter some of this free expression it that they do not come through the first time they can through other other elements of the Constitution and other legal meaning for all of the difficulties the idea of commercial speech is now being kicked in the head by the courts because it has no premise to start with that was worthwhile. Well I don't know how Roger would feel about commercial speech I don't think we we never considered it in his time but I feel that that should have some of the same same protections and I think that. It's it's necessary to allow people the ability to express themselves if you restrict the publication to certain kinds of things. You are I think infringing on your own.

Given freedoms and that's wrong. Unless we unless we cleared by the courts then we'll continue a part of we're all doctor's never saying anything Oh I think you know I hope they know it is cleared by the courts absolutely if that's what you're asking I certainly hope that there's some clarification yes. Could I ask you perhaps this is not fair to tell me if it is your in town to see the sights. No I mean I've been in town to look into a matter of the good IP I left it up to your option they were also having a very preliminary. Fashion and that without any determination at right point examining. Request by New England chapter of Sigma Delta card to look into some charges and countercharges concerning coverage of the school busing desegregation and the desegregation order in Boston I shouldn't say any more than that in that we're in a very preliminary state. I'm sure the council will in time issue a statement about it but I will say this that I've had the greatest degree of cooperation

on all sides from both the press and the Boston area and from those people who have contended that the press has been remiss and I think the council should have before it assuming that I don't model when I give it to them. I have very clear picture of what these issues are and they may strike at some very important First Amendment concerns that I think will interest you at the at the institute and I hope to your listeners it's something that we could possibly do an entire discussion program on when the council winds up its findings on this what actually could collaterally with this the next program in this series is one that deals with the Boston Community Media Council one of the things we do. We're one of the things they're just looking at there is a new book that has just come out I don't know whether you know it been one of the people that you ought to talk to along the lines Allan Lupo. Yes. Who has done a book which I don't think is officially out yet but it's all new news and book stands. When you when you talk to people you gather all sorts of information. And what's the next stage.

Well once we're fair in this case I would say that the council will probably. Address itself to the subject rather informally in the way of a statement if it does anything at the moment. Probably because the next stage is to take this now and put it in in a very comprehensive form for preliminary consideration by the 18 very busy people who are members of the council to get some input from them in advance of our next meeting and possibly have some statement drafted in advance and if the urgency is there even issue it. By way of corresponding through the councillors and getting their approval but the very the real likelihood is the council meets next in March and we're meeting in Des Moines in response to the idea that we should move around the country get out of New York get out of this feeling that we're in one news corridor. And we're going to have a two day meeting as we did here at Boston University way back and at the course of in the course of that meeting at our freedom of the press committee I am sure this issue will be fully explored. Some final decision made on it. Could you give us the membership of the council from the press.

Well give us the membership of the council. Good types of organization watches give you an idea there are 18 people on the council. The present chairman as I said is Norman Isaacs the other people in the press that quickly come to mind. Ralph OTT Well the editor just recently named editor of The Chicago Sun Times was the managing editor there for many years. Dixieland to present a CBS News Ralph phrenic vice president for news of the TV J Miami and and I guess the man of the greatest longevity is an anchorman and local news television. Peter Strauss the president of the BMC WMC in New York and also some time a professor here or at least an instructor and a member of our board of Boston University a member of the Institute. Bill Rusher who is the publisher of Bill Buckley's National Review. Those are the media people learned you know and here in Massachusetts the publisher and editor of a

small newspaper and a very good one called the Southbridge Evening News paid to put in another plug another member of the board of the RTC. Thank you and. I trying to think quickly I thought I had I'm sure about the organizations know what big press organizations are supporting you. People are not on your board. Well Sigma Delta car has been very strong in their support of us. We have had cooperation from both of the major wire services without a statement of support. And as I just mentioned to you Les just published this day straightening of support from William Paley of CBS enunciating support not only for the concept of the council but the work gets done and what it promises to do. So those are those are some of the feel with the people in public life on the council are of equal interest. A woman like Joan Cooney who has started Sesame Street and the head of the Children's Television Workshop we have. Dorothy Height who is the president of the National Council of Negro Women. We have the woman who's the general counsel for now Sylvia

Roberts. And it's. A very strong diversified body and I think the most interesting thing is that its political leanings do not surface in the findings of the counsel these people are wide open and objective in the things that they do. Well I want to say that this has been a tremendously interesting discussion because several things come through to me Norman. One is the openness with which you attack these problems and consider these problems. I wrote recently and so I think there's going to be coming out of that in my opinion the greatest effect that the council has will probably say moral suasion upon new people coming into the profession who will observe the new standards and have guide books to cases which were never made available to the old school kind of reporter who went by the seat of their pants. Is that how you look at it I do it will and will continue however to encourage the old school reporter who went by the seat of his pants as long as he's right.

And that's a very important aspect of American journalism I hope never goes completely out of style I'm delighted to have you on the program and we look forward to our next discussion. This is Brenda driven saying good night. For WGBH radio in cooperation with the Institute for democratic allocations of 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.