Freedom of the Airwaves

A series of hearings which began in Detroit last week may help decide how free a radio station is to broadcast what it pleases. The Federal Communications Commission is investigating charges that a station owner ordered his employees to slant the news to discredit people and groups such as the Roosevelt family and the Roosevelt and Truman administrations.

If the F.C.C. considers the charges against G. A. Richards verified, it can take away his license to operate KMPC in Los Angeles, WJR in Detroit, and WGAR in Cleveland. Richards denies the charges and would undoubtedly appeal an adverse decision to the courts. He claims the investigation is a penalty for his opposition to the Truman administration.

But underlying this individual case is the question of freedom of the airwaves. Opponents of the F.C.C. say that it does not matter whether or not Richards ordered his employees to slaut the news, since a radio station should be as free as a newspaper to present the news as it sees fit. The only limitation on a publication, they maintain, should be the possibility of a libel suit.

In reply, F.C.C. supporters point out that the broadcast frequencies are public property and must be regulated in the public interest. Anyone can found a newspaper, they assert, but the number of broadcasting frequencies is strictly limited.

Even without its precedent-setting significance, the Richards case would be an interesting one. The Radio News Club of Southern California made the original charges in 1948, filing affidavits with the F.C.C. Supporting the accusations were former members of KMPC's news staff who said they were discharged for not following Richards' orders, while he maintained they were fired for "budgetary reasons."

At hearings last spring in California, his former employees said Richards not only insisted that causes he favored receive a maximum amount of time on the air but also wanted opposing views minimized or suppressed. Richards' almost daily instructions to his staff were alleged to have included orders on one occasion to make General Bennett Meyers seem a Jew.

The Detroit hearings, before they are finished, may bring out Richards' answers to these charges; so far his attorney has claimed that the whole business is a smear attempt. Meanwhile, Richards has rallied to his side a large number of organizations, such as the American Legion and the Veterans of Foreign Wars. These groups have have praised the community services of his three stations highly, but Clyde A. Lewis, head of the V.F.W., did say Richards "at times is given to indiscreet personal remarks."

Since the things with which Richards is charged are so extreme, they obscure the basic issue. The present F.C.C. rules say that a station may present its views provided they are identified as editorial mat- ter and the opposition is given equal time to reply. But radio men have been loath to take advantage of this provision, mainly because of ambiguities in the commission's statements.

The radio industry today generally understands its obligations as far as public service broadcasts and advertising limitation are concerned. When the F.C.C., and probably the courts, are finished with the Richards case, Commission officials believe stations will feel free to start editorializing in some fashion