WORD & IMAGE... by MAX FRANKEL
Plots for Hire
Media mercenaries join the war on drugs.

The politicians and propagandists who wage our war on drugs have really
outdone themselves. After bloating the prisons and creating a vast antidrug
industrial complex, they have now bribed our networks to deliver prime-time
audiences for indoctrination and even corralled many newspapers as do-good
collaborators.

Not even during the cold war, with our faith in democracy at stake, did
federal authorities dare so to subsidize and subvert our media. Back then,
Congress explicitly forbade the agencies promoting anti-Communism -- notably
the United States Information Agency, its Voice of America and even the
Central Intelligence Agency -- to aim their propaganda at Americans. Why?
Because everyone understood that the government's heavy hand on the scale of
public opinion could distort the weight of any argument and diminish the
public's freedom.

That principle seems in urgent need of reinforcement. For it has been shown
that the bait of a few million dollars was all it took to get our once
fiercely independent broadcasters to submit to government tutelage and to
lure many papers, including The Times, into taking government rewards for
what appeared to be independent public service.

The furtive broadcast scheme was discovered by Daniel Forbes, a writer for
Salon.com, the Internet magazine, and covered with due concern by a few
newspapers. In response, President Clinton and the television industry made
light of their collusion and disclosed the lesser involvement of their
newspaper critics. Just a bit of chummy cooperation in a good cause, they
argued when their two years of secret dealing became known. (The Times, for
its part, explained that it was rendering only advertising and circulation
services, without affecting its news coverage or content.)

I would like to believe that the broadcasters' collaboration, though
deplorable, had nothing to do with government's recent gifts to them of
spectrum space worth about $70billion and of regulations permitting
unprecedented concentrations of station ownership. And I know the newspapers
think they merit praise, not blame, for disseminating socially useful
messages. But it is odd that an industry usually quick to wrap itself in the
First Amendment would so readily invite the government to read and influence
the content of TV programs and accept government rewards for community
service.

This sad bending of principle began in 1997, when Gen. Barry R. McCaffrey,
who heads the Office of National Drug Control Policy at the White House, was
authorized by Congress to spend up to $1 billion over five years to buy
television time and newspaper ads to agitate against drug use. To take the
curse off this media subsidy, Congress insisted on paying only half-price;
for every ad purchased, it wanted another run free of charge.

The White House's new function: doubling as a full-blown script-review board.

But when a booming economy made commercial time scarce and expensive, the
networks longed for relief from their commitment to discounts. So they were
told they could meet their obligation by another route. Rather than matching
the government's paid ads one for one, the broadcasters were invited to plant
antidrug messages in their prime-time dramas and sitcoms. And newspapers were
allowed to exchange ad space for things like teaching guides and pamphlets.
(In the case of The Times, pamphlets were distributed with a sales pitch for
school subscriptions).

In belatedly hinting at all these deals at a little-noticed Congressional
hearing last fall, General McCaffrey never let on that his office had been
turned into a full-blown script-review board. It decided which TV stories and
newspaper programs were "on message" and "on strategy," which needed
"guidance" and improvement and how much relief from matching ad time or space
each message and activity was worth.

Without apparent hesitation, the networks showered the White House with
scripts and tapes that could qualify for reward, including even unfinished
scripts that could still be altered. Though their producers and writers were
never told of the practice, almost all major shows were at some time offered
for credit -- "The Simpsons," "Ally McBeal," "Law and Order," "The Drew Carey
Show," "Beverly Hills 90210," "Cosby," "Home Improvement" and many more.

A show that portrayed parents confronting a joint-smoking child in ways the
White House deemed effective could redeem the equivalent of two or three
30-second ads, worth at least $100,000. An even larger amount might be earned
by showing a youth resisting peer pressure to take up cocaine. And if a whole
story line were judged helpful, well, then shows like "E.R." or "The
Practice," to offer just two examples, recouped commercial time worth a
million dollars or more.

Some network executives accepted the government's "guidance" to reshape a
script; some badgered unsuspecting writers to insert antidrug messages into
their plots. One producer, John Tinker, recalls being urged to rush ahead
with an antidrug script of "Chicago Hope" even though it had been kicking
around unappreciated for years. Several hundred newspapers and their Web
sites also took in White House ads and matched them in different ways;
besides running a free ad for every paid one, The Times won credits for its
schools pamphlets, which the White House checked "simply for accuracy."

The best proof that the arrangement was dangerously misguided is that it was
long treated as secret. When the story broke, ABC announced that it had
stopped participating after the government had asked it to submit all scripts
in advance. Calling this a "misconception," the White House promised to end
all "previews" and to settle for post-broadcast "reviews." This may dispel
the odor of censorship, but it leaves in place the payments of government
payola for propaganda.

If that represents high-minded media service, why stop with antidrug
scenarios? Why not pay the media for shielding young minds from sex and
gunplay? And one day soon -- depending on which party controls the government
purse -- why not subsidize scripts and ads that sanction, or discourage,
abortion?

President Clinton artfully distinguished the antidrug payola from any effort
"to regulate content." And General McCaffrey's spokesman said: "We do not
clear scripts. . . . Our objective is to provide a better understanding of
the drug issue."

A much better use of public money would be to re-educate all concerned in the
values of First Amendment independence. Our public officials obviously need
reminding that they belong in front of the camera, not behind it. And our
media executives should have learned long ago that those who feed at
government honeypots inevitably get stuck