The First Amendment; William Henry II

The eastern Public Radio Network in cooperation with the Institute for democratic communication Agustin University now presented a curst Amendment and a creepy old weekly examination of civil liberties in the media. In the 1970s the host of the program is the institute's director Dr. Bernard Reuben. My guest tonight is William E. Henry the third the television critic of The Boston Globe who has been at the globe since 1971 as education writer and theater and film reviewer as well as a political writer and general editorial writer. He's classically educated at Yale and Yale was a scholar of the house which is the highest academic honor. He also has done some work on restoration comedy which shows you his classical interests again. Henry won the best story award in New England from the AP and UPI

recently as recently as nine hundred seventy six bill in regard to a story on the criminal justice system which showed the inadequacy of some of the criteria used for that system when a man who was laid off from return to society unfortunately committed another crime. He's been a writer for The Washington Post New York Times New Republic and other journals. William Henry let me ask you this question at the start. Why is it that the level of television criticism across the country is so mediocre. Television is to begin with a pretty new art form. It certainly has a literary style of its own the television series which is admittedly adapted from radio is still utterly unlike any other kind of narrative form. The characters progress at the slow pace of life rather than with the extreme intensity of a two hour drama. And it's

much more an actor's medium and in that for that reason and in that way we're still learning how to write about it. Also journalism has only recently become so overt a force in the society and journalists are still a little uncomfortable writing about journalism particularly print people are a little uncomfortable writing about a competing medium competing not only in an editorial sense but in a business sense and television very rarely undertakes an analytic look at itself. I would say that the general level of writing about television is on the upswing. And that the final reason probably the most important why it isn't better is that the people who are writing about television are writing for approximately the same audience that watches it and people's tastes in what they they choose to see on television are not often elite tastes.

In some ways they can be argued to be unsophisticated tastes and editors of newspapers and magazines often presume that what people want to read about television is in essence more television more star system more PR more promotion of programs more poison it wonderful to have this box lighting up in your living room. One of the editors of one of the large metropolitan dailies in the United States instructed his people that the newspaper would no longer be running serious television criticism more or less inferentially from what you said because the public doesn't want to see criticism of what he called the boob tube at a professional conference of radio and newspaper people. And therefore I. They're performing a service like a shopping service to tell you what really is on. There was a thorough corruption of the whole critical job of television at that station at that newspaper. Is that

something that is going through the country. Are we losing some of the critics that we already have. I don't think so. Nobody's ever spoken to me that way. And at the regular meetings that television critics have with the networks and their performers in California there's obviously a lot of shop talk going on and I don't hear much discussion that way. But there is no question that television does even more intensively some of the same things that newspapers do to sell themselves promote a star system proposed promote interest in celebrities and people who are powerful or often famous for being famous and promoting a breathless belief particularly in news that today is somehow magically different from yesterday and all other days until tomorrow when today will have been just like all the other days but tomorrow will be magically different. And in order to undertake serious criticism I don't mean reviewing I mean

criticism in the sense of analysis of the medium. Point people have to question at least by implication many of the presumptions by which their own organizations are selling themselves. And that is admittedly not always welcome. Let's take some specific issues for example there's an organization known as map to Media Access Project public spirited group that feels that more and more ordinary groups should be allowed access to television. I read very little of that in the formal television columns. I read very little of what might be done by comparisons between television in this country and other countries. For example it's very unusual for the television critic to write I've just come back from Denmark and I've been pursuing some programmes there. Well I have just come back from Denmark and bought the European countries and will be writing over the next several months a good bit about European television. Coincidentally is that not unusual.

I it's out of the ordinary I wouldn't say it's extreme but I give you that it's a relatively new trend. The presumption has been that people watch three and a half hours of television a day which is what the average American watches because they like or at least don't dislike too strongly what's on the air. And their primary interest is not in changing television but in enjoying it as it presently Now this raises questions about the television critics of the role Les Brown for example a former guest on this series. And I said that he spends most of his time writing about the business behind the boxes medivac that's what his book was entitled. And in reviewing the business behind the books is interested in how the finances of the industry are put together. Who determines what programs are put on the set and who is running the production units and on the attitude of the FCC on that kind of question. Now that he works for The New York Times The New York Times has himself

and John O'Connor to do that work. Is he unique in this regard. You see very little of that in the average newspaper. I know of only one other writer who spends all of his time doing that. She's the TV critic for the Wilmington Delaware paper who by choice spends all of his time focusing on. Finance and advertising at most newspapers people like me have both a last Brown role and the role of John O'Connor who writes reviews of programs primarily the globe has two television writers we also have a fellow named Robert MacLean who writes columns several columns a week and both Bob and I will do all of the different aspects of both television as business and television as entertainment. I also write about radio. There is certainly an increased audience for pieces about the the business there is

much more interest in that. But there still is the constraint of readers wanting some information about programs they wish some help as a consumer service and they wish the television critic to function in some sense you know you have TV and movie critic you and I read such journals as editor and publisher and broadcasting magazine and scores of other things like that so we know what's going on. I'm absolutely convinced that a newspaper like The Boston Globe has a wide readership for various kinds of stories that wouldn't fit perhaps into the usual format of the Radio TV column but might be occasional pieces at some length. Yes well we do some of those mostly Sunday supplement stuff. No I've had. Certainly a dozen front page pieces on the business within this past year. No tell me about some of them. Well we certainly considered when television increased its profit margin by 60 percent. In

1976 over 1975 it that merited front page coverage. I've had a couple of more last essays about the nature of the act of watching television. Prodded in part by my reading of some of the incredible mountain of books about television that are produced each year I have some forthcoming pieces as a matter of fact on television in the First Amendment. Two of which I will advocate more or less absolute access of the camera to the courts and the legislatures and in which I will advocate that stations that would not normally operate all night should be compelled to make themselves available to community groups and at least those off hours at a. The marginal cost basis they should not be able to amortize their other expenses but

whatever it costs to have the cameramen there in the studio lit up. You provide a half an hour to a group on a rotating basis so that community groups can have some access. We do write about that sort of thing but I will give you this is a growth area there's been a long time presumption that the people wanted primarily that and also it's a question of resources. Newspapers like every other print organ and for that matter television have only limited manpower and limited space. Les Brown produces about three pieces a month for the New York Times although I'm not going to claim that my pieces are in the same category. I'm quite certain that Bob MacLean and I produced more pieces than that on the same subject each month for the Boston Globe. Just to pursue the point that you raised about a forthcoming article the courts and access of the electronic media to courtroom proceedings. That's that's quite a common position. But I haven't read anything in-depth yet

about the requirements or the rules of the game for television the presumption is that the television crews will come in and work on the proceedings and by showing what goes on in a court room educate the public. And yet I haven't heard anybody suggest that trained lawyers or two men crews as well as the electronic people so that the nuances of what goes on that are being recorded. Could be made clear to the public that the dangers of privacy the dangers to the legal proceedings of misinformation coming from mere observation by the average layman. It should be recognized. Now that's just one lone point. People say that cameras should automatically be put into Parliament Congresses and yet no one comments on the procedures for interpretation. And since the Public Affairs Departments of most television stations are so weak one would think we need more writing on the

background whatever your positions need yes but require no. Here I probably have a firmer First Amendment position than practically anybody I know. I believe very strongly that once you say that the courts are open. Once you say that the legislatures are open and we've always maintained that the processes of government are supposed to go on in public in this country that it's only a logistical question that you can't fit all of the public into a particular chamber and a structural question that those processes go on while most people are working. Let me let me I don't think we don't require that you have an observer there to explain to you when you sit in in person in a legislature or a court. What's going on. We don't require that you you have to be instructed to understand it. We presume that the public has the right to go there and try to comprehend it as best it

can it is one that is in that position. Rather tenuous because I'm not arguing with it is being invalid I'm just saying I have a differing view because let us say that there is a difference in law between a public person and a private person. In a libel suit for example you might go in with your television cameras to a public person's libel suit will say on the case between. Mr Herbert told me Colonel Herbert and CBS would be open to the public whereas if I am having a privacy argument or an argument involving involving my privacy and I am considered a private person under the law just an ordinary Joe and you come in with your cameras it might really upset the purposes that I go to court for and that is to get justice through a procedure that is not entirely public. I am appealing to the law. The presumption that all court cases are public may be true. I'm not saying it

isn't true but it's something we ought to have more writing about so we understand all the nuances before the TV crews go in there. I think everybody presumes that the same rules that allow a judge to close certain proceedings or to conduct them in chambers would apply to the camera as well. How did you feel about that case of the boy in. In Florida where the situation was. Did TV make him do them making them into. Well I think that it was a useful thing that the entire trial was televised. Suppose he had been declared innocent. I find it unlikely I suppose. I doubt it had been upheld on appeal but if he'd been declared innocent Well juries have made decisions that I've disagreed with before. And finally we all have to subscribe to the rule of law don't we know what I'm saying here was a teenager before trial in a major criminal case. Suppose he had been declared innocent and

he's now subjected to a national television television situation. The local station picks it up and other stations carry it because the novelty could not his life have been ruined. I think that's a weak case on your side because you never claimed that he didn't kill this woman he claimed only that he was not in his right mind when he did so. And. I think his family made an error in letting him get a publicity hungry lawyer who came up with this bizarre defense obviously in order to sell Let's now let me let me now take your side of the case. He claimed that he was not in his right mind when he did it. The court let us just take a finding that wasn't in the case. The court then declares that he wasn't hypothetically in his right mind when he did it. Doesn't he have protection. Which of all courts would accord to people who are out of their mind would you subject someone who might still be out of his or legally rationally in

terms of rationally working to public television. It seems to me that when you're dealing with a process of government the right to privacy has got to be fairly circumscribed. There's no question that we are constantly thrust particularly in a society as large as ours which means that there are audiences as large as they potentially can be for television. Into a situation of conflict between the Scylla of being overly protective of privacy and the correct decision being overly eager to ensure the public's right to know. But I suppose part of the reason I work as a journalist and in their particular curious position of a journalist writing about other journalists at least much of the time is that I believe quite passionately and the public's right to know. And I've always heroines Justice Douglas who said when it says Congress shall establish no law it means no law.

Well but as a former teacher of constitutional law have we not been through a demonstration here of some of the kind of television criticism this was of my purpose not to go through the issues directly. But aren't we aren't we examining something in a way that should be common in the press and is not. My point is it's not entirely common if I would to look for this in most of the major newspapers or magazines of the country I would find a general presumption that television ought to go into the parliaments in the courts. I would find much clarifying material in legal journals and so on more and more all the time. But in the general premise of these nuances of great public importance why not handle you know. Would you agree or disagree. I think I'd in general agree. I I again I suppose I'm an incurable optimist. I would say that until you deal with the fundamental question do you do it or not. You can't really and large public fora and with the public following along proceed to the more detailed questions of

how and when. I think that our history in debating all great public issues is that we make the fundamental moral decision first and only then do we develop the details. Those of us who are methodical people are continually thrown into a snit by the fact that this is a side he works in what seems to us to be a fits and starts and overly aggressive way of deciding before planning. But I think that's the essential structure of democracy and you can't get around it very much. Let me know switch gears and ask you Bill Hillary. What you would do to television in order to improve its social accounting its responsibilities to public too. Would you make for more documentaries would you try to get sitcoms that deal with real problems. What particular things have bothered you about television. Can I ask you to refine your hypothesis just slightly and what position would I be doing it

as a critic now you're you're a critic your have observed television that's your professional job. What. What things. Well what I like what I what I like to see more of. Would you like to see some of it. I watch both as a critic and increasingly personally but I guess really as a critic a fair amount of entertainment programming I think that despite the fact that television is a primary news source I think most people are not all that interested in news and that's a structural fact we have to accept. And in some ways it may be that a participatory democracy of two hundred twenty million people is not a workable entity and that if people choose to opt out that may be for the best as long as it's their choice and not a choice someone makes for them in entertainment programming I think that reality is certainly game completely represented to choose the obvious you think that everybody was a doctor or a lawyer or a cop or a

journalist. I am frustrated too by the fact that there is very little sense of what life is like for single people you hardly ever see an older single person on television. You'll see a fair number of young unmarried people who are presumed to be headed toward marriage. There is very little direct confrontation of loneliness and even less of the means by which people cope with loneliness. There is very little sense of the problems that work for most people. That is boredom. Personal conflicts ethical conflicts. Being compelled either to conceal your feelings or to participate in something that you find distasteful. I'd like to see a really good show about a salesman salesman I have a I think a profound moral problem. They are frequently called upon to sell things to people who cannot afford them

and don't either need or want them and yet the salesmen do have in order to maintain their own families to try to persuade these people to part with their money. I assume that there must be some people for whom that's a very hard process. And. I'd like to see somebody deal with it. Now mind you Television is in the business of selling all the time and it is in the business of selling by persuading people not to think about consequences to respond to the desire to have rather than any questions about what you can afford and really need. What do you think of the argument raised by people for children television executives who say that advertising to children sugar cereals and whatnot and similar things pharmaceuticals should be banned on the grounds that Madison Avenue is geared up to be a very sophisticated selling team and children are not equipped to handle it. Adults may be but they are

totally victimized by any magnificent sales pitch. Morally I'm on their side practically I think it's extremely hard to do unless you say you can advertise no breakfast foods and no candy and you will either have to draw those lines very restrictively or else they'll be gotten around and not very much time. That's what advertising agencies get paid a lot of money for. Unless you draw a very restrictive rules or can consign yourself to their not meaning anything you're not going to be able to do it. I don't think you can say you don't direct advertising to children I don't know how anybody decides whether an ad is directed to children or not. I may look at one and say it is you may look at one and say it is but then to proceed to a court of law and establish a workable definition in legal terms that will say in advertising is that advertising is and to children.

It seems to me an almost impossible task isn't the FTC the Federal Trade Commission seriously considering petitions on this very subject. It is certainly weighing them there's at least one commissioner who appears to be sympathetic and I think that there are precedents certainly once you ban cigarette advertising you can proceed to ban certain other kinds. If we are prepared to say as I think is true that we are a nation of sugar junkies that we have a prevalent problem of overweight that sugar except for athletes and certain kind of outdoor workers who need very rapid bursts of energy is not a food that need be in any significant quantities in our normal dietary intake. Fine then we can proceed to ban it. But it seems to me that you either force yourself to the point of saying I will advertise no cereal advertise no candy. Or you give it up. I don't think you can look at who the audience for the ad is because finally as long as we're in a free enterprise system the only way that you can deal

with an ad is by deciding whether the advertisement itself and therefore the product is fit or I'm sick to tell happens to people. Old people across the country older citizens not senior citizens. I'm talking about old people who don't like euphemistic labels they are old and they're discarded and the media don't pay them much heed. They don't they don't for the most part have much money they don't exist now is delamination is interested in selling to people who buy consumer goods. All right now women 18 to 34 primarily given the validity of it. That is almost beyond the ship of tomorrow. Does this make you happy. You live with it comfortably. Do you. Do you say something must be done. One can say something must be done. Doing it is quite another matter. Once again how do you define what is programming directed at Target.

Well she is a television critic a radio television critic go into old age homes and do a survey of what those people think. I mean this would this be a proper area for novel criticism of the media. It certainly would it is been on my list of things to do for a long time but frankly that is that takes quite a while to find a representative place to establish enough of a relationship that people will talk to you to feel that you are coming back with something meaningful. Well an earlier guest on this program Dr. Arthur little head of the home for the for the aged rehabilitation Jamaica Plain in Boston. Talk to him criticize his own medical profession and said in effect apart from some magazines and things like that the profession has disregarded the communications the First Amendment rights of people whose bodies are with it but whose brains are still there they're still thinking alert curious citizens with a role to play in our society. This kind of a no man's land a Sargasso Sea then in your view of television you

object to it but we're all we're all in tune with no wind blowing. Well finally it is a free enterprise system. We may not like be defacto power of the networks who are certainly nowhere in vision in the 1934 Communications Act. We may not like to do jury power of the stations. I am not sure that it is possible to write rules to achieve all of these social objectives without. Deeply I am drawing upon those free enterprise rights and when you proceed to do that eventually you establish somebody or some group as the arbiter of public morals and values and that I think is deeply dangerous. The First Amendment into a democracy. Well I think that you're a realist and I think that you've also said things that probably should open up all sorts of seminars we could have seminar discussions and good academic intellectual tussles on all of these issues which is really the whole point.

Under the First Amendment and therefore I thank you very much William E. Henry the third the television critic for The Boston Globe for being with us. And this is going to droop in saying good night. The eastern Public Radio Network in cooperation with the Institute for democratic communication at Boston University has presented the First Amendment and a free people a weekly examination of civil liberties in the media. In the 1970s the program is produced in the studios of WGBH Boston. This is the eastern Public Radio Network. This is Bernie driven the host of the series the First Amendment and the 3Q. This week's guest is William Henry the Second the radio and television editor for three. I hope you'll tune in for the discussion of issues involving mass media.