But it was the suggestion made by Whitehead yesterday that local broadcasters be responsible for network news content that caused network concern.

"When there are only a few sources of national news on television, as we now have," Whitehead said, "editorial responsibility must be exercised more effectively by local broadcasters and by network management.

"Station managers and network officials who fail to act to correct imbalance or consistent bias in the networks-or who acquiesce by silence can only be considered willing participants, to be held fully

accountable... at license renewal time.'

Whitehead did not spell out how local stations might assess the content of network coverage in advance or on what basis the FCC might judge stations in violation.

In Washington, the OTP source said the proposed bill was still in the planning stage and that "Whitehead was really starting the debate with today's speech."

Continuing his attack on network news, Whitehead said that "station owners and managers cannot abdicate responsibility for news judgments.

"When a reporter or disc jockey slips in or passes over information in order to line his pocket, that's 'plugola' and management would take quick corrective action.

"But men also stress or supress information in accordance with their beliefs. Will station licensees or network executives also take action against this ideological 'plugola'?

"... Station licensees have final responsibility for news balancewhether the information comes from their own newsroom or from a distant network. The old refrain that 'we had nothing to do with that report . is an evasion of responsibility and unacceptable as a defense."

The OTP chief stressed several times that 61 per cent of the average affiliate's schedule is network programming.

Whitehead also said that local broadcasters "can no longer accept network standards of taste, violence, and decency in programming. If the programs or commercials glorify the use of drugs; if the programs are violent or sadistic; if the commercials are false or misleading, or simply intrusive and obnoxious; the station must jump on the networks rather than wince as the Congress and the FCC areforced to do so."

The OTP chief stressed that if a station "can't demonstrate meaningful service to all elements of its community, the license should betaken away by the FCC.

"The standard," Whitehead said, "should be applied with particular force to the large TV stations in our major cities, including the 15 stations owned by the TV networks and the stations that are owned by other large broadcast groups.

"These broadcasters, especially," he said, "have the resources to devote to community development community service and programs that reflect a commitment to excellence." (Each of the three networks has five owned-and-operated affiliates around the nation.).

A spokesman for NBC yesterday said, "The administration's plan as described by Mr. Whitehead seems to be another attempt to drive a wedge between television station and the networks.

"This is regrettable because the ability of our broadcasting system to expand its service to the public depends on continuation of a close and cooperative association of networks and stations, particularly in the area of news and information, without government interference." Spokesmen for ABC and CBS were unavailable.

White House press secretary Ronald L. Ziegler later yesterday declined to comment when asked if Whitehead's hard-hitting speech had been written by presidential speechwriter Patrick Buchanan, who has often been critical of the way radio and TV cover Mr. Nixon.

Ziegler also declined to comment on whether Whitehead's speech was intended as a threat of license revocation.

Whitehead also addressed himself to the current worries in the journalism profession over the First Amendment.

"The First Amendment's guarantee of a free press was not supposed to create a privileged class of men called journalists, who are immune from criticism by government or restraint by publishers and editors,' he said.

وو

"To the contrary, the working journalist, if he follows a professional code of ethics, gives up the right to present his personal point of view when he is on the job."

"Who else, but management," Whitehead asked, "can or should -correct so-called professionals who confuse sensationalism with sense and who dispense elitist gossip in the guise of new analysis?"

Whitehead has taken the lead in administration attacks on broadcasting over the past 14 months. In recent weeks broadcasting industry sources have hinted he may leave for a job in the private sector soon. An MIT graduate and Rand Corp. employee before joining the administration, he is considered an expert in systems engineering and other technical fields.

[From the New York Times, Dec. 19, 1972]

WHITE HOUSE DRAFTS TOUGH RULES ON CONTENTS OF TV

PROGRAMMING

(By Albin Krebs)

The White House has drafted tough new legislation that would hold individual television stations accountable, at the risk of losing their licenses, for the content of all network material they broadcast, including news, entertainment programs and advertisements.

The draft legislation was interpreted by some broadcasting officials here as the Nixon Administration's boldest effort so far to equip the Government with a strong legal means of keeping broadcasters in line economically and ideologically.

The proposed legislation would supplant regulations of the Federal Communications Commission-sometimes loosely enforced-that govern the operations of TV stations and the networks that supply them with more than 60 per cent of their broadcast material.

The existence of the draft legislation, and the intention of the Administration to introduce it in Congress early next year, without substantial change, were revealed yesterday by Clay T. Whitehead, director of the White House Office of Telecommunications Policy.

In a sharply worded speech at a luncheon of the Indianapolis chapter of Sigma Delta Chi, the professional journalism fraternity, Mr. Whitehead, the ranking White House adviser in the field of broadcasting, condemned "ideological plugola" in network news reporting and said local stations would have to bear responsibility for such matter carried over their facilities.

"When there are only a few sources of national news on television, as we now have, editorial responsibility must be exercised more effectively by local broadcasters and by network management," Mr. Whitehead said.

"Station managers and network officials who fail to act to correct imbalance or consistent bias in the networks or who acquiesce by silence can only be considered willing participants, to be held fully at licence renewal time.

accountable

"Who else but management can or should correct so-called professionals who confuse sensationalism with sense and who dispense elitist gossip in the guise of news analysis?"

The bite of Mr. Whitehead's remarks led some sources in broadcasting to speculate that the Administration was renewing the controversy begun two years ago with Vice President Agnew's attacks on the networks.

Mr. Whitehead denied at an earlier news conference that the draft legislation was intended as a vindictive assault on the networks, and described it as designed to force broadcasters to take more responsibility for what goes into American homes by television.

PLAIN APOPLECTIC

Tom Chauncey, president of TV station KOOL in Phoenix, Arizz., said, "I'm just plain apoplectic. If Whitehead really means this, we might as well be living in the Soviet Union. This would mean censorship of news and entertainment, the Government telling us what to broadcast and telling the people what they should see or hear.

"Washington wants to put the onus on the individual stations, make us afraid to broadcast what the networks feed us. I'd far rather hear Agnew raising hell at least he's only talking. Whitehead is talking about actually passing oppressive laws."

In his speech, Mr. Whitehead indicated that the proposed legislation was purely in response to broadcasters efforts to lengthen the terms under which they are licensed by the F.C.C. currently, licenses last three years, but broadcasters want the term extended to at least five years.

"It's been easy for broadcasters to give lip service to the uniquely American principle of placing broadcasting power and responsibility at the local level." he said. "But it has also been easy-too easy-for broadcasters to turn around and sell the irresponsibility along with their audiences to a network at the going rate for affiliate compensation. "The ease of passing the buck to make a buck is reflected in the steady increase in the amount of network programs carried by affiliates between 1960 and 1970. . . The average affiliate still devotes over 61 per cent of his schedule to network programs."

He accused local stations of exercising little responsibility for the programs and commercials "that come down the network pipe."

"Local responsibility is the keystone of our private enterprise broadcast system operating under the First Amendment protections," Mr. Whitehead said, "but excessive concentration of control over broadcasting is as bad when exercised from New York as when exercized from Washington. When affiliates consistently pass the buck to the networks, they're frustrating the fundamental purposes of the First Amendment's free press provision."

The Administration draft, he said, establishes two criteria the individual station must meet before the F.C.C. grants a license renewal: "First, the broadcaster must demonstrate he has been substantially attuned to the [viewer's] needs and interests in all his programs, irrespective of whether those programs are created by station, purchased from program suppliers or obtained from a network.

"Second, the broadcaster must show that he has afforded reasonable, realistic and practical opportunities for the preservation and discussion of conflicting views on controversial issues."

"These requirements have teeth," said Mr. Whitehead. He added that the proposed standards "should be applied with particular force to the large TV stations in our major cities, including the 15 stations owned by the TV networks." The F.C.C. allows each network to own five television stations.

The proposed laws would make it incumbent on the local stations to demonstrate continuing responsibility for what gets on TV screens. "They can no longer accept network standards of taste, violence, and decency in programing," Mr. Whitehead sadi.

There is no area where station management responsibility is more important than news, he went on, adding:

"When a reporter or disk jockey slips in or passes over information in order to line his pocket, that's plugola. And management would take quick corrective action. But men also stress or suppress information in accordance with their beliefs. Will station licensees or network executives also take action against this ideological plugola?"

[From the New York Times, Dec. 20, 1972]

WHITE HOUSE NEWS

The Federal Communications Commission is the agency responsible for regulating radio and TV stations under the law, but the White House is elbowing it aside in a crude effort to call the signals on what can reach the American people.

After an election campaign cease-fire, the White House czar for broadcasting, Clay T. Whitehead, head of the Office of Telecommunications Policy, has returned to the attack. In a speech to a journalism society, he has accused unnamed reporters of something called “ideological plugola" and announced the Administration's intent to sponsor legislation which would in effect permit the White House to discipline broadcasters who strayed from the White House party line. Who is to decide when a journalist is delivering what the White House TV arbiter brands "élitist gossip in the guise of news analysis"?-who, but the head of the Office of Telecommunications Policy, acting for the President himself.

Mr. Whitehead's speech was wrapped inside an Administration plan to make the stations and their owners directly responsible for the network programs they carried and to insure a variety of conflicting views on controversial issues. The requirement of balance, fairness and access already exists within F.C.C. regulations; they are already a factor for assessment when stations come up for license renewal.

But Mr. Whitehead is delivering a different message. He is telling the affiliated stations of the commercial networks to censor major news programs and documentaries that offend the Administration. And he is doing so under the guise of interpreting the First Amendment as it applies to broadcasting news. That is the road to censorship and suppression through abuse of the power to license. It is a road Congress cannot let the Administration travel.

[From the Providence Journal, Dec. 20, 1972]

THREAT TO TELEVISION

A new and ominous threat to the free flow of news comes from Washington where the Nixon administration is drafting legislation, perhaps for submission to Congress early next year, to make local television stations accountable at license renewal time for the balance and taste of all news and entertainment programs they broadcast.

Since television stations can operate only by license from the Federal Communication Commission, the federal government is able to write standards of operation as it pleases. Neither radio nor television is protected by the First Amendment guarantee of freedom of the press as are newspapers which need no licenses to publish.

It has been held generally in the past that accountability ran only to the televised broadcasting of news and programs to serve the public interest. It always has been a goal for all stations to make public all sides of a public issue; regulations insist on equal time for candidates for office under specific circumstances.

But here is Clay T. Whitehead, director of the White House Office of Telecommunications Policy, charging that there is bias in network news reporting. At a convention of professional journalists. Mr. Whitehead sketched the outline of pending legislation which is intended, he said, not to be a vindictive assault on networks but to throw more responsibility on local station executives for what is televised.

The disturbing thing is that Mr. Whitehead has predetermined that there is bias in network news reporting, putting his case like his:

"Where there are only a few sources of national news on television, as we now have, editorial responsibility must be exercised more effectively by local broadcasters and by network management. Station managers and network officials who fail to act to correct imbalance or consistent bias in the networks, or who acquiesce by silence, can only be considered willing participants to be held fully accountable . . . at license renewal time."

...

Mr. Whitehead plainly proposes to throw the task of definition to local judgment; he said, "Who else but management can or should correct so-called professionals who confuse sensationalism with sense and who dispense elitist gossip in the guise of news analysis?"