The First Amendment; Edward P. Morgan

It could be. The following program is made possible in part by a grant from the courier corporation of Lowell Massachusetts. WGBH radio Boston in cooperation with the Institute for democratic communication at Boston University. Now presents the First Amendment and a free people. An examination of civil liberties and the media in the 1970s. And now here is the director of the Institute for democratic communication. Dr. Bernard Reuben. Joining me as co-host today John Lee Klein dean of the school of public communication and our guest is Edward P. Morgan the well-known journalist and broadcaster from Washington DC who attended this very day the conference of the fellows of the Institute. Mr. Morgan first question

I'd like to throw at you since we were talking for a day about the First Amendment in the press is what are your most important thoughts about the situation today. And the First Amendment regarding the mass media. My most important thoughts I think Professor Ruben is a sense of urgency and dismay that the media and the public. Are so ignorant of what the First Amendment means and what the First Amendment should be is a protection. We're inclined to think rather pompously and self-serving lay as journalists now and then at the first media was invented for us the first minute the First Amendment they say first media I meant to say the First Amendment the First Amendment was invented not for us. It was invented for the people to protect them against tyranny. And it worked.

It's worked through the 200 years of our existence as a government and as a society. It almost didn't work. And it wouldn't have worked if the Nixon administration had had its way because they were hitting for the juggler of the media. But it did. I think we can afford only a little minor pride because among ourselves in the media because we weren't all that conscious of it until Woodward and Bernstein of The Washington Post began to do the reversal of Hans Brinker and open the dike instead of stick his thumb in it. But you go around as I do and I'm sure you both do and you're exposed to students all the time and I'm exposed to them part of the time and going around to colleges and seminars. The ignorance of the public not only the young public but the so-called senior public as to what this is all about and this bothers me in other words and I'm glad to be here because this is an issue of education as much as anything else.

You know you think that they don't know what's at stake in the First Amendment guarantees. Yes John I think I'm calling you John because we are known each other for so long and I hope this informality is pardonable. I think they don't know what's at stake and I'm going to be terribly pompous and philosophical. I think that we have we're at the tag end of the Industrial Revolution where it's devouring itself in the sense that our society if we're for not terribly careful and we still have the capacity to be careful are going to be drowned in materialism. The third car the second outboard decide I say these things despite the fact that I'm conscious of unemployment and inflation. I've been going around the country a good deal and I just came back from Australia New Zealand not too many weeks ago the same kinds of issues dogged the people there. But it doesn't stop them buying cars and it doesn't stop them buying sailboats and so forth.

And these things seem more important than the underlying things that we all grew up with and this bothers me. Because this generational distinction and the emphasis upon the material side of life comes at a time when democracy is a minority form of government is not a fact I might even call it a novelty in terms of the amount of people as against the world's population that enjoy democracy. Therefore do you see do you see this distinction between generations as incidentally dangerous and perhaps threatening to the very continuation of this car buying society and appliance appreciating groups. I'm not so sure it's a distinction between the general issues Professor rule and the Jews would you. We only know each other during the night when are you Bernard. Very well I don't like to do this in the Texas fraction of a fraction of 30 seconds afterwards as the first thing I like to wait at least 60 seconds for.

I think it's a continuation rather than a separation of the generation that we began it in in our generation. What was more important what was more prestigious my father had a Model T and then he had a Dodge and then he had a Packard and he had a Packard. We we had the best car in town except for somebody that had a Pierce Erroll. I think that that this is a continuing situation and I think that maybe the younger generation the people who are now in school and are in graduate school may be going back more than their elders to the fundamentals. I'm not sure about this I'm throwing it out as a possibility. And I agree with your your point that democracy I don't know how many people enjoy democracy because I don't know how many people appreciate democracy. It's certainly a difficult apparatus to deal with remember Churchill said in

the Parliament after World War 2 that democracy is the worst possible form of government except all the others. The kicker in that being that it's awfully difficult to exercise your own personal responsibility and register and vote. So on. Are we in danger of car defying our concerns about let's say about the Bill of Rights especially about the First Amendment freedom of speech press assembly and so on. Codifying this in terms of the popular imagery about Watergate or about the post Watergate books or about Woodward and Bernstein. All we in danger of getting away from the essential facts of our heritage and the needs to be alert in response are this bowl of soup about current events possible. I am inclined to think and I would like to know what your what you both think. I am inclined to think that we're moving away from liberty and freedom which our forefathers fought to get and preserve

to security that security is more important than liberty and freedom sure you don't want to but you want to have the freedom to go 80 miles an hour if you can afford it. That's foolish but that's a possibility. But. Everybody is thinking about fringe benefits and about fat pensions and this is all against the front here society that is our heritage and in a small sense I'm not that much of a septuagenarian but I was brought up with and Washington and Idaho to do it that you you. It wasn't exactly the work ethic that a man named Nixon used to use to talk about all the time because I think he overemphasize it but there was something there was something about pride of workmanship I don't think in our industrial societies and I don't and I'm not excluding other countries from this Britain is in an awful mess because of this pride of workmanship. Proud of a job well done. You

see so little over the war. Well the security element is very interesting to me because we went through the whole Watergate experience and realized how much coverup had been made and how much the press had been misled deliberately and and how many restrictions the Nixon administration tried to place upon the press. And finally the whole conspiracy was exposed by the press. And yet we still find today people who say maybe that just shouldn't have been done because it rocked the boat. And we find we find that people are saying investigative reporting goes too far we've gone too far in investigative reporting and we find people who say I really believe the press should be regulated. And that's Norman in our session today pointed out that he gets many many letters at the national news Council saying really you should put some regulations on the press.

And I think that's very scary I don't I do it too I don't understand I don't understand either John but there's an ironic twist here. And I'm just playing with it. I have not seen all the president's men yet but some good friends of mine with sane judgments have seen that without an exception they praise it as a very good not just good entertainment but as a very good movie almost a documentary. If it gets the box at the box office at Redford hoped it would get it may do for us what we haven't been able to do for ourselves maybe restore the respectability of investigative reporting. I am aware of the same kind of criticisms you've just been repeating from the national news Council. I don't agree with them. I think that it would be terrible to regulate the press it's impossible that we would which is anathema we can't have a regulated regulator exactly who would what an anathema it is to have a regulated press in a free society. We've

already got a certain technical regulation of broadcasting through the Federal Communications Act and the FCC the Federal Communications Commission that's enough and it hasn't really. Really been administered too well but that is so certainly no answer and I am inclined to think perhaps I'm doing it defensively. I'm inclined to think that those criticisms of you and I've heard and I know Bernie's heard them too are in the minority but I don't know that this is true. If it were put to a plebiscite across the country. Maybe the majority would say yes. The press has to be regulated because they are prying into our personal affairs and they're being irresponsible and so on. I don't know. Among the comments made by the journalists and I can magicians and commentators that we had assembled today for the audience's benefit 35 people of some repute as a group an individual it was one one comment didn't carry the group because we were assembled to think about ideas rather than to vote on them

that perhaps we ought to look into the FCC original legislation to see whether we need any distinctions to be drawn between the print press and broadcast media when it comes to the control of ideas not when it comes to what's called the control of traffic so that people know who has the stations and what the rules for getting a station and maintaining one are but for ideas should the ideas be left to the courts of the law. Two the process is that the print media are largely subject to what was your impression of that discussion. Well my impression of that discussion was that we have dodged the basic issue and that we're going to have to bloody well think about it very very strongly and with a great deal of a great deal of reflection both in academe and in the trade of journalism because I think it was Nat Hentoff who pointed out that instead of going apart

being completely distinctive facets of the media that the print media and the electronic media are getting closer together. It's going to be very soon that we will get our newspapers through our television sets or the equivalent thereof you punch a button and something comes out of your night table and there is the front page of The Boston Globe. You've already got a very peculiar situation that hasn't been settled in the courts or in the executive branch of the government or the legislative either to make it unanimous about where cable television fits in here. The FCC was was created to regulate things that went through the air. Cable television goes through a telephone line. So how can they say that they have to regulate conversations or programs of that kind. We've got a whole new perspective that we've got a look at when I say we

in this case I mean the American society and think about it very carefully basically. I don't think there is any any distinctive difference as as somebody I think that was the one of the senior correspondents of the Boston Globe said our business is informing people. We're talking about the we're not talking about the entertainment aspects of television and radio or the entertainment the funny pages of the newspapers. And there's there's no differentiation there we do it in a different way we've added two elements in broadcasting the voice in the face and that does this awful thing called personalizing the news which I detest but it's there there's no way to there's no way to remove it. But I think we must think basically in terms of journalism without distinction except for technical distinctions. Your longtime friend and associate Mr. Merrill morrow had similar thoughts and

much frustration in trying to get this to be the mode of the industry. Do you think that the frustrations that he felt less evident today have we made much progress or when it comes to the government incursions upon freedom of expression and dissemination through the mass media. Are we actually slipping behind where Merle was. I I think we may be slipping behind where Maria was. I did know him very well to my good fortune and we talk somewhat about this. And as John knows he wrote a prospectus before John and I went into the public broadcast laboratory 967 giving his version of what he thought a public network should be non sponsored. I got a copy of it somewhere and it was to be the conscience of broadcast journalism that that was the thing that could became most apparent that it could go a step farther than the commercial networks could go because of the restraint of

advertising. Well we tried this in PBL and in a minor way we succeeded but we had many more pratfalls and we really should have had in terms of spending 12 million dollars of the Ford Foundation's money. I'm afraid that except for technical reasons technical achievements like the satellites we haven't progressed Merl used to have a. Cliche of his own which I have used many times giving him credit it wasn't really a cliche even today but it was after he got to be director of the USA. And I think we had him to lunch a bunch of correspondents in Washington soon after that and they were asking him how it was going and satellites were just coming into vogue then and he said Gentleman it isn't so difficult to bounce a signal off a satellite from Singapore or Siberia. The difficulty is to get the information that last two inches from the outer

ear to the inner mind. And that remains the fact the fact that if we believe the polls and I do that the vast majority of adult America gets all of its current information from television. It is frightening because anybody with it with any morality and integrity in the industry will save the First off that we can't be all that dimensional that we are superficial that we are just a collection of headlines. And if that if the majority of Americans get all of their information about the world and about the USA from a half hour of television or 15 minutes of television we're in deep trouble. Had the Nixon administration tried many ways to suppress the press or put restrictions on it legally and through executive orders. And we sort of breathed a sigh of relief now that's gone and I and some of the First Amendment is saved.

But I get the sense from being very close to to the media that they the danger is very much there. Where do you see the next area of danger popping up to freedom of expression freedom of speech freedom of the press at this series of seminars that we had at the University of Colorado where I've just come from. It came up repeatedly from I don't think it was a journalist and I said that I can't remember who it was but it's a sociologist or perhaps suggested that the First Amendment itself was in deep trouble that the public didn't understand the press didn't understand what the First Amendment was for. Therefore if some more alleged outrages came up invasion of privacy whatever or criticisms along the lines of hitting below the growing that are apt to grow in the

Agnew did nine hundred sixty nine. The public would gleefully support suppression of limitation as you indicated burning of the press without knowing what it was doing. I think you did too. To answer specifically but at the same time it's a little bit indirectly. I think you'll forgive me you by doing this. I think one of the great things that we've got to do one of the most urgent things that we've got to do in the trade of journalism today whether it's training journalists in academe as you two gentlemen are doing or whether it's outside or I am in in the trade of journalism weekly if not daily is to try to make to do two things to try to make the public understand what we're doing. And in the course of so doing regain the

credibility of the public it would be wrong to think or to hope or to aim to have the public love us. That's that's not the case this is not a popularity contest. But we need to reestablish maybe we've established maybe we never established the credibility of what we say and and picture and sound awful on so that even though they don't agree with us and don't agree with our opinions they'll say well at least they were honest and. Will think about it if we don't do that then anything can happen. Anything can happen and I think we're. I don't say that we're in as bad a way as we were in 69 or 70 or 73 because I do think finally that the public is beginning to realize that Richard M. Nixon a tragic figure was a public rascal and that it's with exceptions some of some diehards and I respect their

opinions although I grieve for their opinions because I don't think they were correct. Having pretty constantly covered Nixon's from 1952 to 1974 there was a troubled paranoia. And it's becoming more and more apparent. But and I think the public is beginning perhaps reluctantly to accept that. Now this sounds like a terribly pompous pontifical statement for a working journalist to make but I feel very strongly that the journalism trade is not realizing how urgent it is for it to realize corporate though it may be in big business that the First Amendment is under attack and be the easy attack. We've got to take the lead we can expect the public to just say well our They're not so bad as we thought they were. We've got to take the lead and I think this institute that you have a sheeted

here Boston University is one step that can be very very valuable. In terms of taking the lead remember statement by Roosevelt Franklin D Rose a long time ago in a speech he said unto his generation which is given from each generation much is expected of this generation of journalists. It is expected that they participate and take the lead with the First Amendment and indeed all the Bill of Rights and the whole of the Constitution. I got the sense though that the timidity of the press is a very salient factor today. That press leaders are not taking the lead and that the reporters that follow behind them are aping the instructions or that they get or the advice they get by by what they see others doing. Is this too harsh on the press. You were tragically right. You were tragically right as I said in the seminar we had this morning of who said of Katharine Graham. Who's grown in courage under fire and she's basically by nature

a very timid shy woman had not been the head of the Washington Post but Eugene Pulliam had been the head of the Washington Post it's possible that Bernstein and Woodward would not be household words today and that Nixon could still be in the White House that's that's a little overstatement but for the sake of emphasis we always well not always but in our lifetime with one or two rare exceptions we have been timid and I think the reason is plain. We are a business and we are influenced and directed overtly and covertly by indirection by. Rarely by direction from the front office. And somebody said today to you don't ever have to get a note from the publisher as to what you do say and what you don't say. You know what you do say and what you don't say. And this is wrong. It's inhibited

investigative journalism. It's inhibited. Well let me put it this way. This is idealistic and therefore nonsense but I deal in fantasy myself sometimes. If we were really the force that we should be under the Constitution we would have an exposé almost every hour on the hour in this country. That was rude and I'm not talking about scandal now I'm not talking about second story stuff I'm talking about Congressman Sykes I'm talking about Madigan's that are medical aids that are not AIDS that sort of thing. But we don't do it. There is a lack of confidence and among the public for the press today and we see so many manifestations of that. Do you think the press has brought that on someway by what it's done. And if so how can it be changed how can a big amorphous thing such as the press have if necessary reform

itself to regain the confidence of the people. I think we have brought it on ourselves to a degree John. I don't I don't discount us totally. I think that in some respects some newspapers regional newspapers have improved their quality over the last 20 years. We still have only about 10 newspapers a real first class distinction in my view across the country and they're pretty bleak after you get west of the Appalachians. But there are a few. The Los Angeles Times is a completely different newspaper than it was in the 1960s. But I suppose we have brought it on ourselves somewhat We don't write history we chronicle it but we could make more history if we were more conscientious. There's always this there's always this chicken and the egg thing or to put it another way or perhaps a better way there's always this riddle about whether particularly in broadcasting we

should lead the public and tell them here are the issues and sort of falling back on what so many broadcasters and indeed Bernard what so many publishers do. We have to give the public what it wants. I do not believe this I think the public is insulted by this. But what you're getting from what you're saying that press power is like any other kind of power you you get from it what you put into it. And if we get a disaster at the other end it won't be because of leadership leadership it will be because the corporate function of the press has overcome it instinct instinctive desire to report to relate to uncover to strip to explain to interpret. I think you've shown it well. I regret it but I think it's a point. We didn't do badly in World War 2 but I think it's a completely different problem. A war as divorced from in contrast to daily living in a so-called peacetime society.

You know the Englishman who apparently hadn't had much experience in war wrote this book called The first casualty and the first casualty in war was truth. He said well there's a certain amount of there's a certain amount of veracity to that but it only goes part way. I think the Vietnamese war the way we covered it with a few excesses was good. I think we I think we in the media can be proud that we were ahead of the diplomats and to a certain degree ahead of the of the intelligence agencies and telling it as it was. Well I'm very pleased that you could tell it like it is now and I want to thank my co-host John McClane for joining me and interviewing Edward P. Morgan the distinguished journalist and interpreter of contemporary affairs. Thank you. Thank you. WGBH radio Boston in collaboration with the Institute for democratic

communication at Boston University has presented the First Amendment and the free people. And examination of the media and civil liberties in the 1970s. This program was recorded in the studios of WGBH Boston and was made possible in part by a grant from the courier corporation of Lowell Massachusetts.