Looking Back, Looking Ahead

A Personal Point of View

This issue of the QUARTERLY salutes the Founders who gave birth to the Caucus and who soon after announced their support of a set of basic principles codified in our Aims & Objectives -- George Eckstein, Bill Froug, James Komack, Norman Lear, John Mantley, William Sackheim, Aaron Spelling, Leonard Stern, Aaron Ruben, and the late Richard Levinson and Robert Cinader.

Their intellectual courage is a matter of record, for some publicly recognized by a decision of the United States Supreme Court. The Hyphenate Lobby (the name later changed to the Caucus for Producers, Writers & Directors) battled initially for the rights of producer-writers to pursue each calling irrespective of the other, even when one profession was on strike; that initial stand gave way to a broader cause, not only to preserve those and other creative rights, but to serve the public interest by, in the words of the preamble to our Aims & Objectives, "assuming a more direct responsibility to the American viewing public in television programming and related fields, and to protect our integrity as creative artists."

Those talented men and women who followed the Founders, the David Victors, the Renee Valentes, the David Dortorts, the Norman Feltons, the Gene Roddenberrys, the Rod Serlings, the Bud Yorkins and many others, these, too, merit the thanks of the now 238 men and women of 1995's Caucus.

To be a member of the Caucus is an honor much sought after -- -each member must have a body of quality work or have played a major role in helping to shape the television medium with positive values. In a world dominated by major studios, the networks, cable operators, and soon the power of the telcos, it is a tribute to those Founders that they planted the seed that created a new institution, the Caucus, now recognized not only by the television industry, but by the FCC, appropriate committees of the House and Senate, by advertisers, the media, academia, etc.

The singular attribute of the creative mind -- that quality we call a creator's vision -- the ability to make something new, and to battle for its existence with a passion never experienced by bottom-line mentality characterized by today's CEO's, is what sets a Caucus member -- indeed the entire creative community -- apart from corporate network and cable bureaucrats. Some of these latter, and all of the CEO's, have little real knowledge of the product that their corporations market. For the most part they play it safe, secure not only in their reliance on Nielsen ratings and advertiser preferred demographics, but in their appetite for derivative programs -- those fundamental characteristics that prevent them (plus, perhaps their very genes) from fully understanding creative men and women of vision.

Let's be frank. Who among them has the fire and vision of a Leonard Stern, a Barney Rosenzweig, a George Schlatter, an Al Burton, a Marian Rees, a Norman Lear, a Sam Denoff, a Leonard Hill, an E. Jack Neuman, a Roy Huggins, a Dorothea Petrie and many others?

Now, in television's sixth decade, the focus of the Caucus has moved not only to the restoration of creative rights long since arbitrarily appropriated by network bureaucrats exercising monopol-istic powers -- but to an examination of the all-pervasive nature of the medium. The networks and cable (plus the motion picture companies) have never, to my knowledge, initiated independent research that inquires into the impact of the mass media on our society, our children, our fundamental beliefs. They're too busy, in large part undermining the traditional values of the people they confess they serve -- this was noted recently (November 20, 1994) in an excellent article in the L.A. TIMES, where its author, columnist Rick DuBrow, wrote that there is a "growing national obsession with what those who control the home medium are doing to us and our values."

It is clear today that the church, the school, the family have lost a substantial portion of their influence on our children and on the family. Once, those institutions defined society, relying on fundamental morality and ethics that have stood the test of time. Those once cherished tenets, have been chipped away by a few demanding television producers, often aided and abetted by the so-called standards and practices departments of the networks who announce when, and in what particulars, community standards have changed -- generally in a downward spiral.

One might ask: would American parents ever voluntarily allow an alien society to send its disciples into every home in America allowing them to tell their children --the whole family for that matter -- stories laced with violence, spiced and bursting beyond the limits of acceptable sexual behavior, poisoned by the "freak-show atmosphere of the daytime talk shows," to use Rick DuBrow's words, the hosts each appealing to lower and lower values?

America did just that believing in a quixotic way that those new aliens -- taking the form of television sets -- would honestly add to the teachings of ministers, teachers, and parents, never believing that, instead, their hidden agenda was to replace the influence of church, school, and parents.

"Pushing the envelope" -- a euphemism for breaking down standards a civil society once lived by -- has resulted in a Cultural Pollution new to America. That Cultural Pollution, in which all of the mass media are a part, not just television, serves as an ideal backdrop for the ills that other elements of society have inflicted on all of us -- rampant, sadistic crime, hedonistic lives for young people resulting in a plethora of teens giving birth to babies -- a high percentage of them out of wedlock -- the spread of AIDS, the mindless proliferation of motion pictures depicting slaughter as entertainment, sexual aberration as an optional way of life, etc.

Much of television is but one part of this assault, its new advisories a smokescreen to allow further debasement of community standards. The motion picture industry, with its own myopic classification system, some national magazines which boldly trumpet much tasteless content on their often provocative covers, today's tuneless music often with witless and indecent lyrics, all of these instruments of mass communication have become, in substantial ways, contributors to the Cultural Pollution engulfing us. (Of course there are many oases of quality in what Newton Minow once characterized as "a vast wasteland," but that wasteland of thirty years ago is now something of a murky swamp -- as one government official characterized it --"of crime-time and slime-time.")

This Cultural Pollution is as dangerous to our well-being as Environmental Pollution, perhaps more so, for Cultural Pollution affects our minds. If we check our meat, our fish, our poultry; if we check the contents of cigarettes; if we stress the pernicious addiction of alcohol and tobacco, what about the mental addiction of viewers for television?

That is why it is vital for the nation to assess the true impact of the all-pervasive nature of network television, where the average set is in use seven hours daily. Television is the acknowledged leader of the mass media, the one element that may well he mentally addictive. (Advertisers may have private research to prove that.)

I do not think we can take too much comfort from the actual results of the attack on television violence initiated by Senator Paul Simon. The Senator, to be sure, recognized a real problem, but the networks and cable (skilled at the art of procrastination), after commissioning studies of network television and cable, the first by contracting with UCLA's Center for Communication Policy, and cable by funding a study through Mediascope, have wound up accommodating each other without further public debate. The word, for this approach, this pleasant accommodation, is appeasement. The results of these studies won't be known for several years. What useful purpose will be served then by the publication of these findings?

That slap-on-the-wrist initiated by Senator Simon has happened in the past forty years with other Senate Hearings -- the Pastore Hearings, the Kefauver Hearings, the Dodd Hearings. But the issues under challenge surfaced soon again after all of those Senate Hearings were adjourned. Santayana had it right when he warned that "those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

Violence that is excessive and gratuitous is only one element of the Cultural Pollution offered by networks and cable; the other demeaning attributes -- rampant in daytime as well as nighttime -- -sexual exploitation, the debasement of our language and the advocacy of casual profanity -- audible day and night -- these, for the moment, have been largely ignored. But in due time, another Senator or Congressman will find abuse in these areas worthy of another investigation.

What, if anything, can be done about it? Appeals to the taste and sense of responsibility of corporate leadership at the networks? At major advertisers' offices? At the major studios? While society is beginning to recognize that Cultural Pollution is pernicious, realistic solutions are not at hand.

Perhaps, in the interest of the Constitution's eloquent Preamble, it may be time to think of ways "to promote the general welfare." If voluntary recognition that individual and corporate responsibility will not accept their moral obligation to help clean up the mass media mess, if the FCC will do little more than issue sanctimonious warnings about objectionable program content then how much faith can we have in those five individuals who believe they protect children because they currently prohibit "the airing of indecent material between 6:00 a.m. and 8:00 p.m."? Question: Children don't watch TV after 8:00 p.m.?

As Newton Minow wrote in the L.A. TIMES (July 9, 1993), "We have been living for too long according to the seductive theory that the individual pursuit of self-interest will automatically promote the general welfare . . . make no mistake -- it is these broadcasters and Hollywood producers who speak ominously of censorship who through their moral negligence are the greatest of the dangers to our First Amendment freedoms. And to our children." Question: Is Mr. Minow hinting that as a last resort it may be time to think the unthinkable -- the amendment of the First Amendment?

That First Amendment was initially conceived to protect political speech. How can the very thought of amending the First Amendment be tabled? By simply having each corporate entity responsible for television and cable program production adhere to some broad targets -- each to be interpreted by its own staff.

Network television is different from Hollywood movies, the Broadway stage, Vegas, Pay-TV -- as is most of cable. It does not need to paint with the "same colors" as one television producer claims he needs in order to compete with other media. It is not needed for a very simple reason -- the best of television does not need the crutch of profanity, of excessive violence, or titillating sex, to capture audience numbers. The other media have lowered their standards on the premise that they must offer something that will bring TV viewers to their box offices and newsstands. TV does not have to react in kind.

Television has made it before without succumbing to lowering its own standards -- indeed it has a legal requirement to program "in the public interest, convenience, and necessity" -- an obligation too often ignored by the very CEO's of the networks whose station licenses require this moderate adherence to the general welfare.

What damage would there be to quality programming if broadcasters and cable were brought together by the Justice Department, as they were by Senator Simon's initiative against violence, this time to face all of the other areas that provoke many viewers to condemn television? And what if they were to agree on three simple objectives:

1) To recognize that violence is a legitimate aspect of drama. But to pledge to minimize its presence and to eliminate gratuitous and excessive violence.

2) To recognize that sex -- including romance and sexuality --- are legitimate aspects of drama. But, to pledge to eliminate exploitative sex and the depiction of nudity that is designed primarily to titillate audiences and to exploit sexuality.

3) To recognize that language is a human invention designed to advance communication, and that literacy and civil discourse are vital elements in our society.

And recognizing the power of language, to pledge to lift the human spirit, not to degrade it, and to eliminate profanity and to minimize all other expressions of coarseness and action.

When a man of the stature of retired General Colin Powell can say, "There is incredible trash on television every afternoon and we're not ashamed of it," his words should be sufficient notice of the Biblical warning of "a little cloud out of the sea, like a man's hand."

The election just concluded may turn out to be one of the great watershed events of our time. Senior network and cable executives may find the timing is right to acknowledge their moral responsibility to program in the interest of the general welfare of the nation.

The purveyors of the trash to which General Powell referred, always, when confronted by serious challenges to the quality of their offerings, hasten to wrap themselves in the blanket of the First Amendment. If that is to be their ultimate shield, if they insist that they have the protection of the Constitution, then so does their audience. That audience has the right "to petition the Government for a redress of grievances," that, plus the Preamble which hails our right to "promote the general welfare."

With the turn to the right, proven by the recent election, broadcasters and cable should heed the warnings of distinguished Americans who see the Cultural Pollution for what it is, a backdrop that helps to foster -- not to cause -- many of the ills of our society. There are those who argue that if our corporate television and cable leaders fail to recognize that our national character is at stake, that, therefore, they must act responsibly, that they have been granted free access to our homes and children, that if they fail to put the people's interests first, then, perhaps as a last resort -- provided the FCC, the Congress, and the courts also fail to protect American values, recognizing that First Amendment rights are not absolutes -- serious consideration, some suggest may have to be given to the necessity of amending the First Amendment in order to preserve and protect the general welfare.

Can such a suggestion be deflected? Of course it can. That depends upon the corporate leadership of the networks and cable. Senator Simon, architect of the Television Program Improvement Act of 1990, now expired, has been advised by the Assistant Attorney General, Sheila F. Anthony, that "the Department of Justice does not believe that the antitrust laws should present any barrier to the activities described in the Act (see above) notwithstanding the expiration of the statute . . . In sum, the Department does not believe that continuance of the activities that have been exempted from the antitrust laws by the Television Improvement Act -- -including measures already taken or comparable cooperative measures that may he taken in the future --should present substantial antitrust risks."

The networks and cable, while putting the violence issue to rest for a couple of years, can -- if they want to -- move together, once more, to work out voluntary guidelines to alleviate some of the other negative aspects of commercial television.

What are they waiting for?

Isn't it time for the television/cable industry to seize the initiative -- for once?