Policing the Commentator: A News Analysis

by QUINCY HOWE

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AMERICAN radio is trying to promote four freedoms of the air for four different sets of interests. Our government promotes the freedom of the public to listen to the widest possible variety of radio programs. The radio industry promotes the freedom of the broadcaster to go on operating under the existing system of competitive free enterprise. Radio sponsors promote the freedom of the advertiser to sell his products, services, and general ideas. And the radio commentator or news analyst promotes the right to speak his mind.

Some sections of the broadcasting industry have argued that the news commentator has no right to express personal opinions on the air. Most news commentators insist they must not and cannot withhold their own views from the public. The government has expressed concern lest some sponsors use commentators to slant the news their way. The sponsors, to date, have made no public statement.

Twenty years ago, in the early days of radio, hundreds of stations began going on the air, changing their wave-lengths arbitrarily, jamming each other’s programs, and producing total confusion for the listening public. In 1927 Congress, with the backing of the radio industry and the Coolidge administration, therefore passed an act setting up the Federal Radio Commission — a body appointed by the President with power to allocate wavelengths to different stations and to give and take away licenses “in the public interest, convenience, and necessity.” This Commission had little difficulty stabilizing the better stations then in operation, and it tended, on the whole, to act as the traffic cop of the air waves, renewing licenses automatically and letting the radio industry develop in its own way. Then the Federal Communications Commission, which came into existence in 1934, took over these functions.

But in 1938 the Federal Communications Commission began to take stock, and held a long series of hearings on broadcasting operations. These hearings revealed, among other things, that CBS, Mutual, and the two NBC chains did almost half the total business of all stations in the United States and either owned or controlled practically all the most powerful nighttime broadcasting facilities. The FCC therefore issued a series of rulings, the most important of which ordered all networks to cease the practice of tying affiliated stations to exclusive contracts that forbade these stations to take programs from any other network. NBC and CBS appealed the ruling to the Supreme Court, which sustained the Commission in a 5 to 3 decision, handed down on May 10, 1943.

The FCC has not, however, confined itself to fixing business practices in radio. Its able and energetic New Deal chairman, James L. Fly, has indicated that it may have something to say about program content, especially of news broadcasts.

“I heard a so-called news program last night,” he said in Washington on September 13, 1943. “Through the months it has been tending more and more to get away from the news of the day to the philosophies of the particular sponsor. Things like that are done in a somewhat subtle if not oversubtle manner. Only by careful listening do you discover that he is not giving you news or comment on the world news, but is peddling ideas to you from company headquarters.” Mr. Fly therefore made the suggestion that “it may well be that there ought not to be any sponsorship of news or comment,” adding that he did not care to take a position on the matter and indicating that it was up to the radio industry to clean house.

Some stations and networks have already regulated themselves, perhaps with a view to avoiding the drastic solution that Mr. Fly suggests. The National Association of Broadcasters, trade association of the radio industry, has adopted a code which reads in part: “News shall not be selected for the purpose of furthering or hindering either side of any controversial public issue nor shall it be colored by the opinions or desires of the station or the network management, the editor or others engaged in its preparation, or the person actually delivering it over the air, or, in the case of sponsored news broadcasts, the advertiser. . . . News commentators as well as other newscasters shall be governed by those provisions.”

The Columbia Broadcasting System has gone further than any other network in putting these principles into effect. Paul White, head of the CBS news department, says: “The public interest cannot be served in radio by giving selected news analysts a preferred and one-sided position in the realm of public controversy.” Controversy has its time and place on the radio. The forums, debates, and political campaigns in which all sides get a fair hearing take care of that. But the function of the news analyst, says Paul White, “is to marshal the facts on any specific subject and out of his common or special knowledge to present those facts so as to inform his listeners rather than to persuade them. . . . Ideally, in the case of controversial issues, the audience should be left with no impression as to which side the analyst himself actually favors.”

Mr. White admits that this sounds like the counsel of perfection. But he is not asking for the moon; he is criticizing other networks and stations when he speaks of certain broadcasters who “are permitted to present unsupported gossip as fact, to lay claim to ‘inside information’ which could not possibly be known to anyone outside the highest military and political circles and indeed in wartime should not be known to anyone outside those circles.” Whereas Mr. Fly criticizes broadcasters who slant the news to suit their sponsor, Mr. White urges the industry to re-examine the “inside dope” broadcasts — not in terms of sponsor or audience appeal, but “in terms of the harm they are doing and will continue to do. They are the very antithesis of responsible journalism.”

Mr. Fly secs the sponsors slanting the news; Mr. White sees the sponsors encouraging sensationalism in order to develop a wide audience. Mr. Fly urges the industry to police itself and get rid of the sponsor who hires a broadcaster to twist the news to suit his interests. Mr. White also urges the industry to police itself, but he fears the sensation monger more perhaps than the special pleader — since the sensation monger gains a wider audience.

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RADIO depends on sponsors even more than newspapers depend on advertisers. It gets no revenue from any other source. But the radio industry has become so rich, so powerful, and so experienced in its field that it has also become increasingly independent of those who buy its time. After all, sponsors want a big audience and lots of good will — and that’s what radio has learned how to deliver. This state of affairs puts a premium on the big entertainment shows which have wider audiences than any news show and which likewise lend themselves to more effective commercial exploitation. It also means that the sponsor tends to judge news shows largely on the basis of audience appeal — which in turn puts a premium on sensationalism.

Nor is this all. The serious news broadcaster with some gift for analysis and some opinions of his own finds himself under heavy pressure from two quarters. On the one hand, he is tempted to play up to the widest possible audience. On the other, he is tempted to slant his interpretation the way he thinks his sponsor might like it to go.

News broadcasters make their share of mistakes in interpreting world developments, but they know the score in their own game. They have read the Gallup Poll figures showing 57 per cent of the public opposed to social change after the war. They know, if anyone does, the trend of opinion against the New Deal. In recent months, they have seen more than one network replace liberal commentators with those who take a conservative view. And they have seen the sponsors snap up the news programs with a conservative slant as they never snapped up the programs with a liberal slant.

The liberal commentator had to prove himself — and he did not have too much difficulty, because up through 1940 most Americans approved of most of the New Deal. But with the tide now running against the New Deal, the conservative commentator gets a sponsor first and an audience afterward. For the sponsor — the man who pays all the radio industry’s bills — not only wants to reach the widest possible audience. When he buys a news show he will tend, nine times out of ten, to prefer the kind of analyst who at least does no violence to the National Association of Manufacturers.

The Federal Communications Commission and its New Deal chairman therefore have many more bones to pick with the sponsors of news programs than they have with the news departments and news broadcasters of the networks. The big wartime profits of American industry and the popular trend away from the New Deal sharpen these conflicts. Sponsors are consequently feeling their oats. They are not only exerting more indirect pressure: the radio public and the news broadcasters who appeal to that public are responding to that pressure. In so far as commentators do slant their news, those who slant it away from the New Deal have found favor with sponsors and the public alike. Those who take the New Deal line, so popular a few years ago, now find they get into trouble with their sponsors, if not with their audience or with the stations or networks over which they speak.

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JUST as the government works through the FCC; just as the radio industry has its National Association of Broadcasters; just as American industry has its National Association of Manufacturers, so the radio commentators have banded together in selfinterest. A year and a half ago, under the leadership of H. V. Kaltenborn, about a dozen radio commentators connected with network and independent stations in New York City organized the Association of Radio News Analysts to promote the general welfare of their little sector of the radio industry. Their Constitution restricts membership to commentators who “do not voice what are commonly known as ‘Commercials,’” ARNA has also adopted a six-point code of ethics which brought it into a head-on collision with the radio industry. The second point in ARNA’s code of ethics reads: “The Association expects and requires of the radio news analyst the exercise of sound judgment and good taste and the avoidance of sensationalism in both the substance of his broadcast material and the manner of its presentation.” So far, so good. But point six — the one that gave some sections of the radio industry conniption fits — reads: “The Association opposes all censorship of broadcast material except in so far as duly required by government authorities in the interest of public safety during a national emergency.”

The second point of ARNA’s code goes along all the way with the policy of Paul White and CBS. Although humor and rumor, prediction and inside stuff, exhortation and denunciation, cracker-barrel philosophy and sensationalism, attract wide audiences and therefore appeal to the undiscriminating sponsor, they have less than nothing to do with logical, factual analysis of world affairs. But ARNA also takes the position that the conscientious commentator has the right and even the duty to express his own opinion on controversial issues, and that neither the sponsor nor the station over which he speaks has any right to edit his copy.

Commenting on the code, Mr. White admitted that ARNA’s insistence on judgment, taste, and accuracy and its opposition to sensationalism took care of the worst dangers in news broadcasts. But he added: “Where we may be apart is over the question of whether the network has the right and, indeed, the duty to censor or edit material prepared by the analyst. Just as I believe that no news reporter should go on the air until his script has gone over the copy desk to be checked for errors of fact, grammar, and news judgment, so do I feel that no news analyst should broadcast without editorial supervision of his script.”

Mr. Kaltenborn then came back at this and other criticisms of ARNA’s code in a prepared talk before the Public Relations and News Committee of the National Association of Broadcasters. Just as Paul White admitted that there is no such thing as complete objectivity, so H. V. Kaltenborn said: “The radio news analyst cannot and should not function night after night as preacher or soap box orator. He cannot constantly make himself the medium for passionate expression of personal or minority opinions. By and large his statements should not offend the majority of his listeners.” But he wound up his talk with a spirited appeal to the radio industry not to “hamstring the great cause of free speech on the air by adopting a rigid code of rules to govern all radio commentators.” He then gave this advice: —

“Hire the best men you can get for the money you can pay. Tell them frankly what you expect; what you are trying to do with your station or network. And then give them their heads. If they get out of line, correct them. If they continually violate what you deem to be an essential policy, fire them. But don’t pretend that you are going to be able to prevent a commentator worth his salt from expressing his personal opinion. Every competent news analyst has opinions, and they are bound to come out in the way he selects his material and puts it on the air.”

Perhaps it is the last thing that some members of ARNA expect, but the general adoption of the policy recommended by Mr. Kaltenborn would appeal much more to the big-money sponsors than to Mr. Fly and his Federal Communications Commission. For it is the big-money sponsors who pay top prices to put news analysts on the largest networks at the most desirable times. Now and then a sponsor with liberal opinions or a sponsor with no opinions at all who simply wants to reach the widest possible audience might hire a liberal commentator. But the average big-money sponsor is more likely to prefer the views of the National Association of Manufacturers to the views of the New Dealers and their liberal friends — and his taste in ccmmentators will reflect this preference.

Moreover, the whole radio news industry — from the commentators up and down — has a professional interest in maintaining certain journalistic standards. The sponsors have no such direct interest. If the sponsors can enlist the radio news industry to spread their opinions through the voice of a popular commentator, they can hardly be blamed if they proceed to go to town. In consequence, the honest concern of the commentator for free speech can lead to the one-sided exercise of that right by those whose opinions command the biggest money.

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IN THE field of radio news we thus see four separate groups struggling for power in the name of freedom of the air. The past quarter century has witnessed a vast increase in the power of the Federal government, in the power of the radio industry, in the power of big business, and in the power of the men and women who interpret news over the air. To exercise power one must also have freedom. But the exercise of power and the enjoyment of freedom likewise impose heavy responsibilities.

Give government its head, and radio becomes a Federal monopoly. Give the radio industry its head and you get more and more power concentrated into fewer and fewer hands. Give the sponsors who support radio their heads and radio becomes the voice of private American industry. Give the commentators their heads and you get either a babel of irresponsible voices or — much more likely — a concerted drive on the part of privileged groups to promote their special interests in the guise of free speech and opinion.

FCC Chairman Fly may be on the right track. He probably goes too far when he suggests forbidding all commercial sponsorship of all news shows. For instance, the news reporter who gathers his own material, usually overseas, seldom editorializes. He cannot color his news to suit his sponsor; also these valuable overseas news reports cost a great deal of money. They need as well as deserve commercial sponsorship. And the straight newscaster who simply summarizes the day’s events does — or can be made to do — a sufficiently impartial job to rate commercial sponsorship. So do the military and other experts.

But the news analyst is something else again. Here Mr. Fly has something, and the radio industry might be well advised, in its own interest, to develop a new feature — the unsponsored, nonsensational news analyst who gives his own opinion on controversial issues, speaking at regular, convenient hours with judgment, accuracy, and good taste. The industry should also see to it that various points of view get expressed.

As for the excess prophets, the gossip merchants, and the peddlers of inside dope, they should go right on operating — preferably without sponsors. But just as the Pure Food and Drug Act requires the manufacturer to state on his label what ingredients go into his product, so those radio broadcasters who specialize in prediction, rumor, and sensation might carry labels too, defining them for what they are. Likewise the news analyst should be presented as giving a frankly personal, opinionated, unsponsored interpretation of the news. His network or station would vouch for his accuracy, taste, and judgment. It would take no position on his opinion beyond saying that it believed his views deserved to be heard.

What price, then, freedom of the air? First, there is no such thing as freedom of the air for everybody — at any price. There is not even any such thing as freedom of the air for sponsors, commentators, or the radio industry itself — not unless and until one of these groups seizes complete control of the air and operates the radio industry as it alone sees fit. Nor is there any such thing as freedom of the air for the government. The FCC simply lays down the rules under which other people operate in the public interest, convenience, and necessity.

But if there is no such thing as freedom of the air for anybody or everybody, there are such things as responsibility, tolerance, diversity, and honesty on the air. And what concerns us on the air and everywhere else is not freedom as an abstract ideal, but freedom as a way of life which allows for giveand-take, which calls things by their right names, which sets the public interest higher than any group interest, which limits one man’s freedom in order to give another man some chance.

It is useless to seek a final answer to all the questions pertaining to radio. The best we can hope for is to give tentative answers to single questions, one at a time. And Chairman Fly has at least suggested an approach to the question of freedom of the air in so far as it affects the radio news analyst. Can the radio industry, the radio sponsors, and the radio commentators rise to the occasion that confronts them?