You Know It Already…But It’s Still Frightening

 

 
 

Thanks to John Anderson in the comments for bringing this to my attention:

 
 
 

Spiro Theodore Agnew

 

Television News Coverage

 

delivered 13 November 1969, Des Moines, Iowa

 

 

I think it’s obvious from the cameras here that I didn’t come to discuss the ban on cyclamates or DDT. I have a subject which I think if of great importance to the American people. Tonight I want to discuss the importance of the television news medium to the American people. No nation depends more on the intelligent judgment of its citizens. No medium has a more profound influence over public opinion. Nowhere in our system are there fewer checks on vast power. So, nowhere should there be more conscientious responsibility exercised than by the news media. The question is, “Are we demanding enough of our television news presentations?” “And are the men of this medium demanding enough of themselves?”

Monday night a week ago, President Nixon delivered the most important address of his Administration, one of the most important of our decade. His subject was Vietnam. My hope, as his at that time, was to rally the American people to see the conflict through to a lasting and just peace in the Pacific. For 32 minutes, he reasoned with a nation that has suffered almost a third of a million casualties in the longest war in its history.

When the President completed his address — an address, incidentally, that he spent weeks in the preparation of — his words and policies were subjected to instant analysis and querulous criticism. The audience of 70 million Americans gathered to hear the President of the United States was inherited by a small band of network commentators and self-appointed analysts, the majority of whom expressed in one way or another their hostility to what he had to say.

It was obvious that their minds were made up in advance. Those who recall the fumbling and groping that followed President Johnson’s dramatic disclosure of his intention not to seek another term have seen these men in a genuine state of nonpreparedness. This was not it.

One commentator twice contradicted the President’s statement about the exchange of correspondence with Ho Chi Minh. Another challenged the President’s abilities as a politician. A third asserted that the President was following a Pentagon line. Others, by the expressions on their faces, the tone of their questions, and the sarcasm of their responses, made clear their sharp disapproval.

To guarantee in advance that the President’s plea for national unity would be challenged, one network trotted out Averell Harriman for the occasion. Throughout the President’s address, he waited in the wings. When the President concluded, Mr. Harriman recited perfectly. He attacked the Thieu Government as unrepresentative; he criticized the President’s speech for various deficiencies; he twice issued a call to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to debate Vietnam once again; he stated his belief that the Vietcong or North Vietnamese did not really want military take-over of South Vietnam; and he told a little anecdote about a “very, very responsible” fellow he had met in the North Vietnamese delegation.

All in all, Mr. Harrison offered a broad range of gratuitous advice challenging and contradicting the policies outlined by the President of the United States. Where the President had issued a call for unity, Mr. Harriman was encouraging the country not to listen to him.

A word about Mr. Harriman. For 10 months he was America’s chief negotiator at the Paris peace talks — a period in which the United States swapped some of the greatest military concessions in the history of warfare for an enemy agreement on the shape of the bargaining table. Like Coleridge’s Ancient Mariner, Mr. Harriman seems to be under some heavy compulsion to justify his failures to anyone who will listen. And the networks have shown themselves willing to give him all the air time he desires.

Now every American has a right to disagree with the President of the United States and to express publicly that disagreement. But the President of the United States has a right to communicate directly with the people who elected him, and the people of this country have the right to make up their own minds and form their own opinions about a Presidential address without having a President’s words and thoughts characterized through the prejudices of hostile critics before they can even be digested.

When Winston Churchill rallied public opinion to stay the course against Hitler’s Germany, he didn’t have to contend with a gaggle of commentators raising doubts about whether he was reading public opinion right, or whether Britain had the stamina to see the war through. When President Kennedy rallied the nation in the Cuban missile crisis, his address to the people was not chewed over by a roundtable of critics who disparaged the course of action he’d asked America to follow.

The purpose of my remarks tonight is to focus your attention on this little group of men who not only enjoy a right of instant rebuttal to every Presidential address, but, more importantly, wield a free hand in selecting, presenting, and interpreting the great issues in our nation. First, let’s define that power.

At least 40 million Americans every night, it’s estimated, watch the network news. Seven million of them view A.B.C., the remainder being divided between N.B.C. and C.B.S. According to Harris polls and other studies, for millions of Americans the networks are the sole source of national and world news. In Will Roger’s observation, what you knew was what you read in the newspaper. Today for growing millions of Americans, it’s what they see and hear on their television sets.

Now how is this network news determined? A small group of men, numbering perhaps no more than a dozen anchormen, commentators, and executive producers, settle upon the 20 minutes or so of film and commentary that’s to reach the public. This selection is made from the 90 to 180 minutes that may be available. Their powers of choice are broad.

They decide what 40 to 50 million Americans will learn of the day’s events in the nation and in the world. We cannot measure this power and influence by the traditional democratic standards, for these men can create national issues overnight. They can make or break by their coverage and commentary a moratorium on the war. They can elevate men from obscurity to national prominence within a week. They can reward some politicians with national exposure and ignore others.

For millions of Americans the network reporter who covers a continuing issue — like the ABM or civil rights — becomes, in effect, the presiding judge in a national trial by jury.

It must be recognized that the networks have made important contributions to the national knowledge — through news, documentaries, and specials. They have often used their power constructively and creatively to awaken the public conscience to critical problems. The networks made hunger and black lung disease national issues overnight. The TV networks have done what no other medium could have done in terms of dramatizing the horrors of war. The networks have tackled our most difficult social problems with a directness and an immediacy that’s the gift of their medium. They focus the nation’s attention on its environmental abuses — on pollution in the Great Lakes and the threatened ecology of the Everglades. But it was also the networks that elevated Stokely Carmichael and George Lincoln Rockwell from obscurity to national prominence.

Nor is their power confined to the substantive. A raised eyebrow, an inflection of the voice, a caustic remark dropped in the middle of a broadcast can raise doubts in a million minds about the veracity of a public official or the wisdom of a Government policy. One Federal Communications Commissioner considers the powers of the networks equal to that of local, state, and Federal Governments all combined. Certainly it represents a concentration of power over American public opinion unknown in history.

Now what do Americans know of the men who wield this power? Of the men who produce and direct the network news, the nation knows practically nothing. Of the commentators, most Americans know little other than that they reflect an urbane and assured presence seemingly well-informed on every important matter. We do know that to a man these commentators and producers live and work in the geographical and intellectual confines of Washington, D.C., or New York City, the latter of which James Reston terms the most unrepresentative community in the entire United States.

Both communities bask in their own provincialism, their own parochialism.

We can deduce that these men read the same newspapers. They draw their political and social views from the same sources. Worse, they talk constantly to one another, thereby providing artificial reinforcement to their shared viewpoints. Do they allow their biases to influence the selection and presentation of the news? David Brinkley states objectivity is impossible to normal human behavior. Rather, he says, we should strive for fairness.

Another anchorman on a network news show contends, and I quote: “You can’t expunge all your private convictions just because you sit in a seat like this and a camera starts to stare at you. I think your program has to reflect what your basic feelings are. I’ll plead guilty to that.”

Less than a week before the 1968 election, this same commentator charged that President Nixon’s campaign commitments were no more durable than campaign balloons. He claimed that, were it not for the fear of hostile reaction, Richard Nixon would be giving into, and I quote him exactly, “his natural instinct to smash the enemy with a club or go after him with a meat axe.”

Had this slander been made by one political candidate about another, it would have been dismissed by most commentators as a partisan attack. But this attack emanated from the privileged sanctuary of a network studio and therefore had the apparent dignity of an objective statement. The American people would rightly not tolerate this concentration of power in Government. Is it not fair and relevant to question its concentration in the hands of a tiny, enclosed fraternity of privileged men elected by no one and enjoying a monopoly sanctioned and licensed by Government?

The views of the majority of this fraternity do not — and I repeat, not — represent the views of America. That is why such a great gulf existed between how the nation received the President’s address and how the networks reviewed it. Not only did the country receive the President’s speech more warmly than the networks, but so also did the Congress of the United States.

Yesterday, the President was notified that 300 individual Congressmen and 50 Senators of both parties had endorsed his efforts for peace. As with other American institutions, perhaps it is time that the networks were made more responsive to the views of the nation and more responsible to the people they serve.

Now I want to make myself perfectly clear. I’m not asking for Government censorship or any other kind of censorship. I am asking whether a form of censorship already exists when the news that 40 million Americans receive each night is determined by a handful of men responsible only to their corporate employers and is filtered through a handful of commentators who admit to their own set of biases.

The question I’m raising here tonight should have been raised by others long ago. They should have been raised by those Americans who have traditionally considered the preservation of freedom of speech and freedom of the press their special provinces of responsibility. They should have been raised by those Americans who share the view of the late Justice Learned Hand that right conclusions are more likely to be gathered out of a multitude of tongues than through any kind of authoritative selection. Advocates for the networks have claimed a First Amendment right to the same unlimited freedoms held by the great newspapers of America.

But the situations are not identical. Where The New York Times reaches 800,000 people, N.B.C. reaches 20 times that number on its evening news. [The average weekday circulation of the Times in October was 1,012,367; the average Sunday circulation was 1,523,558.] Nor can the tremendous impact of seeing television film and hearing commentary be compared with reading the printed page.

A decade ago, before the network news acquired such dominance over public opinion, Walter Lippman spoke to the issue. He said there’s an essential and radical difference between television and printing. The three or four competing television stations control virtually all that can be received over the air by ordinary television sets. But besides the mass circulation dailies, there are weeklies, monthlies, out-of-town newspapers and books. If a man doesn’t like his newspaper, he can read another from out of town or wait for a weekly news magazine. It’s not ideal, but it’s infinitely better than the situation in television.

There, if a man doesn’t like what the networks are showing, all he can do is turn them off and listen to a phonograph. “Networks,” he stated “which are few in number have a virtual monopoly of a whole media of communications.” The newspaper of mass circulation have no monopoly on the medium of print.

Now a virtual monopoly of a whole medium of communication is not something that democratic people should blindly ignore. And we are not going to cut off our television sets and listen to the phonograph just because the airways belong to the networks. They don’t. They belong to the people. As Justice Byron wrote in his landmark opinion six months ago, “It’s the right of the viewers and listeners, not the right of the broadcasters, which is paramount.”

Now it’s argued that this power presents no danger in the hands of those who have used it responsibly. But as to whether or not the networks have abused the power they enjoy, let us call as our first witness, former Vice President Humphrey and the city of Chicago. According to Theodore White, television’s intercutting of the film from the streets of Chicago with the “current proceedings on the floor of the convention created the most striking and false political picture of 1968 — the nomination of a man for the American Presidency by the brutality and violence of merciless police.”

If we are to believe a recent report of the House of Representative Commerce Committee, then television’s presentation of the violence in the streets worked an injustice on the reputation of the Chicago police. According to the committee findings, one network in particular presented, and I quote, “a one-sided picture which in large measure exonerates the demonstrators and protestors.” Film of provocations of police that was available never saw the light of day, while the film of a police response which the protestors provoked was shown to millions.

Another network showed virtually the same scene of violence from three separate angles without making clear it was the same scene. And, while the full report is reticent in drawing conclusions, it is not a document to inspire confidence in the fairness of the network news. Our knowledge of the impact of network news on the national mind is far from complete, but some early returns are available. Again, we have enough information to raise serious questions about its effect on a democratic society.

Several years ago Fred Friendly, one of the pioneers of network news, wrote that its missing ingredients were conviction, controversy, and a point of view. The networks have compensated with a vengeance.

And in the networks’ endless pursuit of controversy, we should ask: What is the end value — to enlighten or to profit? What is the end result — to inform or to confuse? How does the ongoing exploration for more action, more excitement, more drama serve our national search for internal peace and stability?

Gresham’s Law seems to be operating in the network news. Bad news drives out good news. The irrational is more controversial than the rational. Concurrence can no longer compete with dissent. One minute of Eldrige Cleaver is worth 10 minutes of Roy Wilkins. The labor crisis settled at the negotiating table is nothing compared to the confrontation that results in a strike — or better yet, violence along the picket lines. Normality has become the nemesis of the network news.

Now the upshot of all this controversy is that a narrow and distorted picture of America often emerges from the televised news. A single, dramatic piece of the mosaic becomes in the minds of millions the entire picture. The American who relies upon television for his news might conclude that the majority of American students are embittered radicals; that the majority of black Americans feel no regard for their country; that violence and lawlessness are the rule rather than the exception on the American campus.

We know that none of these conclusions is true.

Perhaps the place to start looking for a credibility gap is not in the offices of the Government in Washington but in the studios of the networks in New York! Television may have destroyed the old stereotypes, but has it not created new ones in their places? What has this “passionate” pursuit of controversy done to the politics of progress through logical compromise essential to the functioning of a democratic society?

The members of Congress or the Senate who follow their principles and philosophy quietly in a spirit of compromise are unknown to many Americans, while the loudest and most extreme dissenters on every issue are known to every man in the street. How many marches and demonstrations would we have if the marchers did not know that the ever-faithful TV cameras would be there to record their antics for the next news show?

We’ve heard demands that Senators and Congressmen and judges make known all their financial connections so that the public will know who and what influences their decisions and their votes. Strong arguments can be made for that view. But when a single commentator or producer, night after night, determines for millions of people how much of each side of a great issue they are going to see and hear, should he not first disclose his personal views on the issue as well?

In this search for excitement and controversy, has more than equal time gone to the minority of Americans who specialize in attacking the United States — its institutions and its citizens?

Tonight I’ve raised questions. I’ve made no attempt to suggest the answers. The answers must come from the media men. They are challenged to turn their critical powers on themselves, to direct their energy, their talent, and their conviction toward improving the quality and objectivity of news presentation. They are challenged to structure their own civic ethics to relate to the great responsibilities they hold.

And the people of America are challenged, too — challenged to press for responsible news presentation. The people can let the networks know that they want their news straight and objective. The people can register their complaints on bias through mail to the networks and phone calls to local stations. This is one case where the people must defend themselves, where the citizen, not the Government, must be the reformer; where the consumer can be the most effective crusader.

By way of conclusion, let me say that every elected leader in the United States depends on these men of the media. Whether what I’ve said to you tonight will be heard and seen at all by the nation is not my decision, it’s not your decision, it’s their decision. In tomorrow’s edition of the Des Moines Register, you’ll be able to read a news story detailing what I’ve said tonight. Editorial comment will be reserved for the editorial page, where it belongs. Should not the same wall of separation exist between news and comment on the nation’s networks?

Now, my friends, we’d never trust such power, as I’ve described, over public opinion in the hands of an elected Government. It’s time we questioned it in the hands of a small unelected elite. The great networks have dominated America’s airwaves for decades. The people are entitled a full accounting their stewardship.

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21 Responses to You Know It Already…But It’s Still Frightening

  1. Bannerman says:

    “If a man doesn’t like his newspaper, he can read another from out of town or wait for a weekly news magazine. It’s not ideal, but it’s infinitely better than the situation in television.” says it all THANK GOD FOR THE INTERNET!

       19 likes

    • Bannerman says:

      Week one of the BBC “Bread and Circus” event and the country has suddenly forgotten the rest of the world. My old Mum seems to think Syria has gone quiet , our economic crisis has evaporated and all other troubles in the world have gone away…just because “THE NEWS” does not report it …oh Mum at 76 you haven’t discovered the web…..YET!

         14 likes

  2. Louis Robinson says:

    Well done John Anderson – and Spiro Agnew.
    This goes into my permanent archive.

       13 likes

  3. London Calling says:

    Agnew was pillioried by the (left) media at the time, as best I recall (Nixon’s vice-pres) . The same tosh about stupid right wing gaffe-prone – you have heard it all before, its the standard Left script. It’s not hard to see why. They don’t like being found out.

       20 likes

  4. David Preiser (USA) says:

    Unfortunately, most of the major newspapers now are pretty much as bad as Agnew feared the TV news was. The BBC has more power and influence than all of them combined.

       15 likes

    • johnnythefish says:

      And they know it. And they believe they are untouchable. Their brazenly biased approach gains strength with every passing day.

      Time for a grand purge.

         19 likes

  5. Josh9 says:

    Read the intro, watch the film, read the ‘vicsim report’…study the backup in the forum.
    http://www.septemberclues.info/

       1 likes

  6. wallygreeninker says:

    It’s a pity these perfectly sound views had to be expressed by the ‘only vice president in United States history to resign because of criminal charges’, serving under a much vilified president and so, to many people, might thus seem tainted. Ad hominem arguments may be fallacious logically but in politics not entirely rational impressions, associations and public image count for a lot.

       4 likes

  7. Span Ows says:

    In tomorrow’s edition of the Des Moines Register, you’ll be able to read a news story detailing what I’ve said tonight. Editorial comment will be reserved for the editorial page, where it belongs. Should not the same wall of separation exist between news and comment on the nation’s networks?

    If only!

       6 likes

    • Guest Who says:

      Indeed.
      I had forgot about the man (and his flaws), but the words still ring loud.
      ‘..subjected to instant analysis and querulous criticism. … inherited by a small band of network commentators and self-appointed analysts, the majority of whom expressed in one way or another their hostility..’
      When reporting became ‘analysis’ and facts needed enhancing to become views, any media who claimed to be professionally objective started living a lie of their own arrogance and delusion.
      http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/correspondents/nickrobinson/
      ‘come here for my reflections and analysis on what’s going on in and around politics ‘
      Yours for just £145.50pa. No refunds.

         6 likes

  8. Daniel Smith says:

    It is amazing how astutely Agnew has analyzed the media problem here over 40 years ago but since that time the problem has grown worse and conservatives have done nothing about it except sit on their hands and allow themselves to become marginalized.
    It is instructive that upon seeing the name Spiro Agnew I was expecting quite a different article to the one written. I always considered Agnew to be a joke figure, something which I just absorbed via the pop culture of the 70s, which demonstrates again the power of narrative upon the terms on debate. I hope at last that conservatives might be getting this.
    As it is, the media is already preparing the idiot Romney narrative which will contain recycled idiot Bush jokes, which in turn were recycled idiot Reagan jokes which in turn were idiot Ford jokes,,,,

       15 likes

  9. John Anderson says:

    Baldwin’s words really are true – these media types, the BBC especially because its reach is unique, exercise “power without responsibility, the prerogative of the harlat throughout the ages”.

    Who voted for Naughtie, for Humphrys, for Justin Webb etc ? Why can they and the Today team dictate the flavour of the “news”, the agenda ?

    It is IMPOSSIBLE to be unbiased. That is why I like the stress Agnew puts on trying to separate news from comment.. And there should be much more news.

    Politicians’ statements should not be truncated and warped – they should be verbatim and full. The “journalists”/.opinionated hacks should not be getting between the people and their elected representatives.

       12 likes

  10. John Anderson says:

    US TV networks and major newspapers are predominately “progressive”, anti-Republican. So it is no surprise they portrayed Obama’s 2008 overseas election trip as wholly positive, whereas they invented out of whole cloth the idea that Romney’s recent overseas tour was a total gaffe-ridden disaster. A false line slavishly followed by the wretched Mardell and the BBC.

    http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Journalism/2012/08/04/Old-Media-Mostly-Negative-on-Romney-Europe-Trip-100-Positive-on-Obama-s-2008-Trip

    This cartoon by Ramirez exposes Mardell’s lies :

    http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2012/08/when-the-editorial-cartoonist-is-smarter-than-the-editorial-board.php

       11 likes

    • Span Ows says:

      Great links, good stuff. LSM in USA so pro Obama it stinks…yet the sheeple can’t smell a thing.

         2 likes

    • David Preiser (USA) says:

      Great cartoon, hadn’t seen it. Ramirez must be one of those racist “white Hispanics”.

         2 likes

  11. Jeff says:

    1, Nothing to do with the BBC. I must admit I started to skim read after a bit, but don’t see any mention.

    2. This doesn’t apply to the BBC. ‘A small group of men, numbering perhaps no more than a dozen anchormen, commentators, and executive producers, settle upon the 20 minutes or so of film and commentary that’s to reach the public’ – the news isn’t decided centrally and applied to all programmes. It will depend on the programme’s audience, time of day etc etc
    And of course, the numerous indepent productionn companies.

    3. How should we decide what news is covered? Public vote? On an hourly basis?
    A free media is a fundamental of a democratic society. That means a media free to decide what stories it covers, which it doesn’t and how much coverage. No organisation, government, or pressure group can dictate that.

    And long may that continue.

       1 likes

    • John Anderson says:

      and the BBC remains free to dominate news servcice in the UK – with distinct bias on so many issues in contravention of its Charter duty to be impartial ?

      Nonsense. The BBC is too damn big, too expensive, it should be cut right back, it suffocates proper competition.

      A very small number of people at the core of the BBC news operation control what we see and hear. That is wrong in a pluralistic democracy.

         6 likes

    • Wild says:

      “How should we decide what news is covered?”

      Via media plurality and consumer choice i.e. just use all your anti-Murdoch arguments against the BBC? You got it yet?

         5 likes

      • Louis Robinson says:

        Q. “How should we decide what news is covered?”
        A. Do the best you can in your decision making AND let others make other value judgments too. Your story and your angle is not the only one – remember that!
        So we need more news outlets (not just on the net but on the regular airwaves)
        We need to break up the incredible (state funded) monopoly that unfairly dominates the airwaves and shapes the views of a nation about their present and future. It’s only one view! There are other opposing views. Treat them with respect.
        Be more open to honest criticism.
        Be humble in your role as a public servant.
        Remember you got to your position as a reporter/commentator by an internal system: interviews, annual reports, brown-nosing and looking busy. No-one voted for you.
        Warning! The BBC is despotism tempered by dismissal. Tomorrow you’ll be on the outside looking in and like me, you won’t like what you see..and just in case you think this written by a bitter former employee, someone who was pushed – wrong! I jumped.
        Joining the BBC and later leaving were the two best professional move I ever made.

           4 likes

  12. George R says:

    There are basically about four UK TV broadcasters of news: BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Sky, with BBC dominating, at national and local level, given its enforced public financing by licence payers.

    The political content of e.g. BBC News is determined by groups of Beeboids who generally propagandise their pro-Labour, pro-Obama, pro-greenies, pro-E.U and pro-Islam ideology.

       8 likes

  13. Wayne X says:

    It is interesting to note that in the USA the media is funded by investors and shareholders not by a mandatory tax on the whole (TV watching) population as the BBC is here. However, the modus operandi of the TV stations and the end results as described by Mr. Agnew 43 years ago are exactly the same; “unlimited power without responsibility”.

    I know there are regulations here that are supposed to ensure fairness and impartiality but adherence to those regulations is put aside by the BBC as easily as a whore’s undergarments. Yet, no one dare speak out, not the Prime Minister of this country or any of his Ministers and yet they are acutely and painfully aware of the British Mammoth in the Kingdom wreaking havoc across the land from the Palace of Truth in downtown Salford.

    It would be nice to think that truth, honesty and speedy information will increasingly come from the internet but a look at the Olympics will show you the road to come for freedom of information. No other media corporation has been allowed to show live event here other than our, oh so proud, national broadcaster. Sky and ITV have been forced on to the sidelines with gritted teeth showing only re-runs, interviews and comment. No one other than the Olympic sponsors has been allowed to use the five rings or 2012 logo. Small shops have been threatened with prosecution for daring to show five donuts in a row.

    Unfortunately the internet crackdown has now also started. It stated when they came for the rude remarks on Twitter and it will continue until the hammer of iron is upon all Blogheads. “Thou shall NOT speak truth unto nations”, we the BBC monopoly are the only nourishment you need for survival, all others will be destroyed (News International).

    Mr. Agnew was sadly right 43 years ago and is most emphatically right now.

       7 likes