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CAUGHT Paying-Off the Media to Influence Public Opinion Against Drugs
By Brian Lowry
The White House Office of National Drug Control Policy is under
fire for a controversial strategy said to have financially rewarded
television networks for incorporating anti-drug messages into
such shows as "ER" and "Chicago Hope." The
unorthodox arrangement, detailed in the online news service Salon,
has raised awkward questions about whether broadcasters changed
story lines in an effort to spare themselves from allocating valuable
air time to free public-service spots.
Both network representatives and the drug-control policy office
deny that the incentives (i.e., payments) played any direct role
in influencing program content. Even if the direct influence
of the relationship was minimal, as network and White House officials
suggest, the story's timing represented a major embarrassment
to the White House anti-drug office. Officials planned to release
results of a study that concludes television generally does a
far better job than movies and music when it comes to responsible
depictions of drug, tobacco and alcohol use - seemingly endorsing
the value of the White House office's own work. (Of course, television
is tightly controlled by licensing, and organized pressure groups.
WFI Editor)
Broadcasters are required under a 1997 law to donate public service
time commensurate with the amount bought by the White House office.
However, networks can achieve credit toward those matching spots
based on anti-drug messages within programs. That time could
then be sold to advertisers, with each 30-second commercial in
a top-rated show such as "ER" worth more than $500,000.
(Those TV networks just give and give. WFI
Editor)
The drug-control office and some networks acknowledged that scripts
were reviewed in advance. Moreover, networks claimed more than
$20 million in credit, against their matching obligations, for
programs carrying anti-drug themes, including NBC's redemption
of over $1 million, according to Salon, for a drug-use plot on
"ER." Network representatives acknowledge scripts and
videotapes were sent to the drug-control office but say the government
in no way exercised veto power over their content. Television
industry officials point out that anti-drug efforts have been
underway since long before the office initiated its push under
the current White House drug czar, retired Army Gen. Barry R.
McCaffrey. (Ironically, when the blacklists were developed in
the 1950s that forced anyone who was regarded as communist out
of employment, it was the studio chiefs and the corporations that
developed and used them, without any interference from the Federal
Government. The fact is that industry and government march to
the same drummer. WFI Editor)
Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Chairman Meryl Marshall
said anti-drug awareness has been elevated in TV circles since
the mid-1980s, when First Lady Nancy Reagan made drugs a national
issue. (This highlights the nature of the influence the White
House exerts on U.S. society, because drugs have been an issue
for decades, especially with regards to the most devastating drug
of all, alcohol. But "TV circles," which is a euphemism
for powerful television network executives, did not recognize
drugs to be a social issue until Nancy Reagan decided to make
it one; when will issues be picked up by the media because they
are worthy, instead of the product of high society's attempts
to influence public opinion? WFI Editor) Grant
Tinker, then the chairman of NBC, was instrumental in establishing
strong guidelines at that time. "The leadership that started
then has pretty much stayed intact in regard to the drug issue,"
Ms. Marshall said, "it's become socially unacceptable among
creative people to present drugs in a glamorous way."
Various organizations, such as the nonprofit Entertainment Industries
Council, have spent years seeking to inform TV producers about
such matters, offering resources to help programs explore the
subject. Even so, such explanations did little to mollify media
critics, who contend broadcasters abandoned their independence
by making concessions to government aims in exchange for cash
incentives. (It is important to remember that America is in the
middle of a political debate about whether or not the drug war
is an appropriate use of state power. The White House's access
to virtually unlimited funds to virtually bribe broadcasters to
side with it in the debate, constitutes undue influence; it works
against the interests of a democratic society, in favor of a regimented
model, controlled by the interests that control the Presidency,
by eliminating the free choice of the individual. WFI Editor)
Robert Corn-Revere, a former Federal Communications Commission
chief counsel, told Salon the campaign is "pretty insidious.
Government surreptitiously planting anti-drug messages using
the power of the purse raises red flags. Why is there no disclosure
to the American public?" A White House spokesman defended
the strategy, maintaining the goal was simply to facilitate getting
messages across to children and teenagers. Some researchers have
pointed out that the efficacy of public service advertisements
is undermined when contradicted by the TV programs airing adjacent
to them, a finding that the office has seized on as a rationale
for its program of bribery. "When the message is embedded
in [programming], it has a much more valuable 'oomph,'"
Donald Vereen said, deputy director of the drug-control policy
office. "The message has to get deeper than a 30-second
or a 60-second spot." The office controls a $1-billion media budget, allocated over five years. About two-thirds of its expenditures go toward the purchase of advertising, with the rest earmarked to the media campaign. SOURCE: Excerpted from the 14 January, 2000, issue of the Los Angeles Times, Orange County Edition, from an article entitled, "White House Tie to Anti-Drug TV Scripts Criticized." Reprinted in the public service of the national interest of the American people.(WFI EDITOR: The U.S. War on Drugs is doomed to failure because it does not address causal factors with regards to substance abuse in America. First, there is far more death and destruction caused from the use of legal drugs, than there is caused from the use of illegal drugs. Prescription drugs, alcohol and tobacco kill more people every year than all the heroine, cocaine and speed put together. Second, by spending billions on advertising campaigns, it reveals the real sentiments of the political class who run the republic on behalf of their masters, the owners and managers of corporations. Because by spending a billion dollars on substance abuse treatment, those many Americans with substance abuse issues could have found the medical help they needed to overcome their dependencies; instead, they'll just get a lecture the next time they watch television.
Government and industry put on a good show that
appears to stigmatize drugs, while underneath, they are unwilling
to address the real causes of America's substance abuse, because
the cause of this widespread substance abuse is the widespread
desire of Americans to find "escape." That is why people
take drugs and drink alcohol. To determine why so many Americans
want to escape, we would have to really take into account the
kind of society the corporations and the republican system of
government has created, something the corporations and the republic
are adamantly opposed to.)
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