Cooling Off Media

THE NIXON ADMINISTRATION is notorious for abusing the 100 press, its stabs ranging from acerbic critiques by the Vice president to a Supreme Court decision which forces newsmen to disclose their sources. Last month, Clay T. Whitehead, director of the President's office of Telecommunications Policy, announced that the Administration hopes to introduce a new weapon to its arsenal the regulation of network programming through affiliate stations. In the proposed legislation, local stations will be held responsible at license renewal time for the "taste and balance" of network news and entertainment programming. The passage of this legislation would give Nixon an indirect power of censorship over the national networks and raises serious threats to the media's already tenuous First Amendment rights.

Although the proposed requirement of "balance" may at first glance seem to be a commendable stimulant to open discussion. Whitehead emphasized that this new regulation is aimed at the too liberal and too-hostile national media. The "ideological plugola" that Nixon hopes to stem can be understood to include documentaries on hunger in America and on the Pentagon, as well as the announcement of casualties for the day and year in Vietnam. In fact, "taste" and "balance" are so vague that they could apply to any commentary and to any amount of reporting of a subject which Nixon objects to.

VIEWERS AS WELL AS local stations, already have and use a power of censorship over network programming. The person who finds offensive Walter Cronkite's weary resignation as he announces the resumption of bombing in Southeast Asia can switch off his set. In some areas, local stations offer alternate of additional programming for the dissatisfied. An ABC affiliate in Denver has not carried network news for three years; a North Carolina station provides Paul Harvey's sarcastic Americanism as an antidote to the preceding network reports.

Snatching the power of selection from the viewers, the Nixon plan places it squarely in the lap of an unspecified Federal official who will use ambiguous criteria to extort platitudes and placebos from the national media. Local stations would have to pass muster or fold; even the station managers who agree with Whitehead's philosophy would pressure the networks to share the responsibility for modifying programming in 'line with the President's standards. Through this indirect, but potent mechanism, the press freedom of natural networks would be hedged in by Federal intimidation and fenced in by Federal penalty.

It is some small comfort to remember that Whitehead's proposal is not an executive order, but a piece of legislation. In Congress, Senator John O. Pastore is developing coolness toward Whitehead and Senator Sam Ervin's strenuous opposition to any infringement of press liberty should dampen whatever sparks of enthusiasm which may exist for Whitehead's plan. For the networks, solicitous of their fragile relationships with their affiliates, the threat of regulation may itself be sufficient impetus to change. Whether it succeeds or not, Nixon's proposal blows a chill wind across freedom of the press.