Senate
Subcommittee
Chair
Vows
to
End
Anti-Drug
TV
Credits
2/11/00
Senator Ben Nighthorse Campbell (R-CO), chair of the subcommittee that oversees White House spending, said that he intends to add language to next year's appropriations bill that will put an end to the practice of government review of, and payment for, television scripts that meet their approval. "This does not violate the letter of the law, but it does violate the spirit of what we're trying to do," said Campbell. The controversy began with an investigative report by Dan Forbes in Salon Magazine, which revealed that the Office of National Drug Control Policy had been reviewing scripts and granting credit to networks which ran shows with anti-drug content. The credit was given against time owed the government for anti-drug public service announcements under the Partnership for a Drug Free America campaign. The networks had initially agreed to provide the PSA's at a two-for-one discount on their regular advertising rates. A strong economy, however, made the ad time more lucrative, and the networks jumped at the chance to work off their commitments through their programming, allowing them to resell the ad time to commercial buyers. The White House, for its part, has maintained that the scheme was no secret, and that the Drug Czar, Barry McCaffrey, had testified before Congress, letting them know exactly what was going on. Senator Campbell, however, preempted the testimony of Alan Levitt, who runs the program for ONDCP, to disagree. Campbell told Levitt that he had searched the congressional record and could not find anything to substantiate the White House claim. In a second hearing (2/9) before the House Commerce Committee Subcommittee on Telecommunications, Trade and Consumer Protection, Dr. Donald R. Vereen, Deputy Director of ONDCP testified that his office had, in fact, been open and honest with Congress. "Everything about this campaign -- including the pro-bono match -- has been conducted openly with congressional oversight," said Dr. Vereen in his written testimony. "There were three congressional hearings in 1999 on the subject of the media campaign, so the notion that this project is being conducted in 'secret' is inaccurate." Dr. Vereen went on to defend the crediting of networks for content in lieu of ad time owed the government. But in deference to the extreme criticism that ONDCP has taken over its purported review of television scripts prior to production, Dr. Vereen did say that that particular practice would end. "We take seriously concerns about the campaign's pro-bono match procedures. There can be no suggestion of federal interference in the creative process. In the future, we will review programs for pro-bono match considerations only after they have aired." But according to experts in communications and propaganda, the issue of whether a show is approved by the government during or after the creative process begs the key question on state censorship. Dr. Patricia Aufderheide, professor at the American University School of Communications, told The Week Online that state censorship does not necessarily require direct government involvement during the creative process. "It is well to recognize that prior censorship is problematic," said Dr. Aufderheide. "The problem here is the immense power of the state to punish or, as in this case, to reward. If you are creating a television show, and you know in advance that the state will review its content to decide whether or not it approves, there is enormous pressure to cooperate by self-censorship. And while it is perhaps true that this is preferable, at least in the mind of the person creating the piece, to the government's direct involvement, the reality is that the power of the state is such that both scenarios result in strong government influence. Neither form of censorship is a good idea in a free society." The original Week Online story about the disputed government anti-drug campaign at can be found in our archives at http://www.drcnet.org/wol/121.html#ondcp. Dan Forbes' expose in the online magazine salon.com can be found at http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2000/01/13/drugs/.
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