Broadcasting Telecasting (Apr - June 1951)

IILL COVERAGE House Group Bans TV, Radio LEVISION's right to cover pubCongressional hearings on a lparable basis with all other ts gathering media emerged in rper focus last week as the use Un American Activities nmittee resumed its entertainht probe — amid exploding flashes but without radio, television riewsreel equipment, "■he issue arose when Chairman n Wood (D-Ga.) restated a flat i against television, radio and don picture coverage "pending ther study" and limited physical erage to still photographers and ps reporters. "'he action drew fire from Kenih H. Berkeley, vice president i general manager of WMAL."-FM-TV Washington (The Eveg Star stations), which had ght permission to install two cameras in the hearing room, vas learned. i/Tr. Berkeley labeled the policy "discriminatory" and urged the imittee to "take up the question whether any medium of comnicating information . . . [on] . . . proceedings direct from the committee room should be allowed" or whether such meetings shall be held in closed session. His statements were contained in a letter sent to Rep. Wood last Wednesday, and cited a series of conversations with committee members, including the chairman. 'Unanimous' Opinion Earlier, Chairman Wood told Broadcasting • Telecasting that the action represented the "unanimous" opinion of the committee at this time and that "pending further study," all cameras and microphones would be barred from current hearings. Only still photographers and news reporters would be permitted entrance with their equipment, he added. "As for tape recordings, you can put your own interpretation on that," he asserted. "I don't know until the question actually arises. This is not my action, but was decided by the committee." The freshly-announced ban came as individual members of Congress continued to mull the whole question of Congressional committee conduct of public hearings, particularly in the light of the sensational Kefauver crime committee telecasts and amid new legislation by Eep. Arthur Klein (D-N. Y.) to permit TV coverage of SenateHouse floor and committee proceedings (see story this issue). Permission extended to still photographers raised the question among authorities of whether the House Un American Activities Committee had not overstepped its bounds, in view of ill-founded complaints that television cameras function with blinding lights and other distractions to which some witnesses have objected [Broadcasting • Telecasting, April 2]. The committee's action also was being weighed against unofficial reports that a majority of committee members had no objections to telecasts of proceedings and that the committee itself had been deluged with requests for TV coverage. The issue broke out anew last Tuesday when Chairman Wood con sulted with members in executive session and set a policy whereby 16mm newsreel cameras would be permitted to cover the hearings. Cameramen for Telenews, an INS subsidiary, and NBC-TV were allowed to "record" them. Chairman Wood announced that a motion to telecast the sessions had been tabled on the premise "by some members" that coverage would turn the proceedings into a "threering circus." On Wednesday, newsreel cameramen for both Telenews and NBCTV were barred from the committee room. This action reportedly stemmed from complaints that 35mm cameras should enjoy similar privileges. Chairman Wood then prohibited all movie cameras at the hearing. Referring to Tuesday's sessions, Chairman Wood explained that "we admitted all cameras that could be carried in the hands of the newsreel people." NBC-TV's newsreel coverage comprises both 16mm and 35mm cameras, both silent and sound. Portions of Tuesday's hearings, were used that evening on the Camel News Caravan. Telenews (Continued on page 152) he Congress and TV . . . E ROAR of congressional and editorial anient aroused by the telecasts of the fauver committee hearings has, thank nvens, diminished. Ve take advantage of what may be only a lporary calm to make a few comments of ■ ■ own. Such considered opinions, carefully Pressed, as were projected in recent weeks ^te, we fear, drowned out by the greater din those who joined in an argument that was hout articulation and pretty much without ught. ^he general hubbub over the Kefauver telef'ts did not add up to an enlightening record, i many people rushed to print or rostrum (;h a frantic contribution, lest the popularity the question expire before their names and ^)tes were noticed, that the main issues were Jerly deserted. A man anxious to get into act as big as the Kefauver critical chorus apt to cast about for a unique angle not retofore covered by the others. This sort thing, multiplied by a majority of all those •the act, does not guarantee coherent dission. jooking back over the main currents of the jrument, one cannot avoid concluding that debate did not rage over television at all. i thing that was really worrying most of the :uers— although they may not have recoged it themselves — was the conduct of Con ?3S. udge Samuel S. Leibowitz, the noted New rk jurist, told Yale law students that TV |(.ld become a "sinister weapon of slander [r if safeguards are not set up to control its i »» 5en. Alexander Wiley (R-Wis.) introduced ■esolution calling for a senatorial study of intricate problems raised by telecasts of gressional proceedings. Valter Lippmann strayed from global conunims long enough to recommend that telets of congressional hearings be prohibited lecasting • BROADCASTING until a policy on the Subject can be defined. What worried all three of these distinguished commentators was that somehow the dignity of congressional procedures and the rights of witnesses were jeopardized by television. That is rather fuzzy thinking, coming from such usually sensible minds. Visualize a telecast session of a congressional committee at which an intemperate interrogator makes an accusatory and unanswerable statement against a witness. It is true that this would be an offense against the dignity of the proceedings and the witness' rights. But we wish to point out that television would only report the offense. It would not commit it. Indeed TV would report the incident more accurately than any other news instrument or agent in the room. The newspaper reporter writes his version of the offense. His story is edited by a copy reader and may be further altered by an editor operating under a policy that either favors or opposes the parties involved. A headline is written, intended not only to summarize the story but also to do its bit in avoiding a decline in the newspaper's sales. The chances for error, exaggeration or distortion in the newspaper system of covering news are appalling and constitute an omnipresent problem for the conscientious newspaperman. What similar chances are run by television ? None. Television is essentially an electronic transmission of a news event as it happens. The system is virtually incapable of error or distortion. Now what Judge Leibowitz and Sen. Wiley and Mr. Lippmann are really talking about, it seems to us, is that they fear a danger in exposing congressional proceedings to public observation. That is to say, exposing them just as they happen, without editing, without AN EDITORIAL interpretation or — more to the point — protection of any kind. In one way or another all three of them have participated in, and certainly observed, many congressional sessions. It may be that because of their first-hand experience in these matters their fears are not without ground. It is conceivable that the political fortunes of some members of the Congress would not be enhanced if their behavior were projected, undisguised and unvarnished, directly to the citizens. Indeed it is quite possible that the regular and comprehensive telecasting of proceedings would exert a profound change in the personnel and deportment of the Congress. Such a change would be forced because television, being totally unbiased, shows up a man exactly as he is, whether a phony, a bumbler or a sensible statesman. Since Messrs. Leibowitz, Wiley and Lippmann are learned men and conspicuous champions of democratic government, it is difficult to understand how all of them have fallen into inconsistency in commenting on the subject of congressional television. If any one of them were individually refused admission to a public hearing of Congress or any of its committees, we are sure his protests would be heard from coast to coast. How possibly, then, can they object to the admission of a larger audience? What the Congress can do in the presence of Messrs. Leibowitz, Wiley and Lippmann it should not hide from the other citizens of the U. S. The question of television's place in the family of newsgathering media is destined to be argued in the courts and in the Congress. We fervently hope that its place will be defined for what it is — the most impeccable reporter ever to witness and report a news story — and that it will be given free access to all those occasions that the electorate is guaranteed a right to scrutinize under our parliamentary democracy. April 16, 1951 • Page 139