Broadcasting Telecasting (Apr-Jun 1957)

GOVERNMENT continued HOUSE HEARING AIRED IN CALIF. • Walter defies Rayburn ban, allows radio-tv coverage • Scott bill would provide equal access for all media TV CAMERAS portrayed proceedings at the House Un-American Activities Subcommittee hearings in San Francisco Thursday while Speaker Sam Rayburn, in Washington, and Chairman Francis Walter (D-Pa.), presiding at the hearing, conducted a transcontinental sparring match. The chairman was ahead on points late Thursday. The hearings brought a series of electronic evolvements as the legislative jockeying was accompanied by the unfolding of a Communist charge against a KCBS San Francisco announcer and the suicide of a scientist called as a witness. Also Thursday, Rep. Hugh Scott (R-Pa.), a member of the House Rules Committee, entered the fight on the side of Rep. Walter. He introduced a resolution (H Res 282) which would provide "equal access for all news media before proceedings of the House." Mr. Scott said that he first became interested in the right of radio and TV to cover House hearings while he was chairman of the Subcommittee on Legislative Procedure during the 83rd Congress. This committee held hearings in 1953 on the rights of witnesses before Congressional bodies, which took up the question of radio-TV coverage. Radio and TV, as news gathering media, should be accorded the same privileges given print media in reporting the proceedings of Congressional hearings, Rep. Scott said. The resolution was referred to the rules committee, and its author said that he would press the committee to call it up for hearings. All day Thursday Speaker Rayburn and Chairman Walter recited their conflicting versions of broadcast coverage to eager newsmen. The Speaker said several times that he had flatly banned broadcast coverage of House hearings. Chairman Walter, on the other hand, said he didn't figure the Speaker's ruling in the last Congress carried over into this one. While Speaker Rayburn kept repeating his broadcast ban Thursday, Chairman Walter kept the hearing room open to cameras, microphones and tape recorders. Everybody was surprised Thursday morning when KRON-TV San Francisco had its cameras working in the hearing room after the Speaker had told newsmen in Washington that this must not be done. KCBS had a tape machine recording the proceedings. Speculation was running high on Capitol Hill Friday morning on any possible punishment faced by Rep. Walter for defying the Speaker's ban. Rep. Clarence Cannon (DMo.), author of the House official guide on procedure, said Mr. Walter faces possible contempt action for his refusal to accede to Mr. Rayburn's edict. Thursday afternoon the tv pickup switched to KQED (TV), educational sta Page 68 • June 24, 1957 tion, following a split-day pattern set up early in the week. Late Thursday Speaker Rayburn decided not to answer any more questions when he learned about the KRONTV and KQED pickups. House members watched developments on lobby news tickers, noting that members and committee chairman frequently challenged rulings by the Speaker. A KCBS announcer, Louis Earl Hartman, 42, was suspended Wednesday by Henry Untermeyer, KCBS general manager, after he refused to answer committee questions about alleged Communistic affiliations. Mr. Hartman, broadcasting as Jim Grady, had been doing a daily commentary about San Francisco history and culture since 1949. The station said he had signed a WHILE House Speaker Sam Rayburn issued repeated demands that they be stopped, KRON-TV San Francisco cameras continued coverage of Un-American Activities Committee hearings in that city with the consent of Chairman Francis Walter (DPa.). KQED (TV), local educational station, carried the coverage in afternoons, KRON-TV in the morning. Here Dorothy Jeffers, Thursday witness, testifies while cameras and microphones feed tv and radio stations. statement in 1950 denying membership in the Communist Party or any other subversive group. He refused to answer committee questions, citing the recent Supreme Court decision in challenging relevancy of the inquiry. He said he was not invoking the Fifth Amendment. Mr. Untermeyer issued the following statement: "It is the policy of CBS Inc., because of the nature of its business, not to employ or retain in employment members of the Communist Party or of other subversive organizations. Pursuant to this policy, CBS has, since 1950, required employes to make full disclosure of their membership, if any, in subversive organizations as listed by the U. S. attorney general. Mr. Louis Hartman filled out and signed the CBS questionnaire, in which he denied membership in the Communist Party or any other subversive organizations. ■ ■ "Accordingly, until the time of the current San Francisco hearings of the House Un-American Activities Committee, CBS has had no indication that Mr. Hartman was a member of the Communist Party or any other subversive organization. Nothing in the content of his broadcasts in any way indicated subversion or sympathy for Communism. "The questions put by the House Un-American Activities Committee to Mr. Hartman indicate that the committee believes that it has evidence of Mr. Hartman's Communist Party membership activities. Mr. ! Hartman has the personal privilege of refusing to answer these questions and of putting to judicial test his legal right to do so. "But the questions put by the committee and his failure to respond, while not proof of Mr. Hartman's Communist membership or activities, raise a serious issue concerning such membership and activities and require further study by CBS within the limit of its powers. Pending completion of such study, we have suspended Mr. Hartman's employment with us and shall not permit I him further access to our broadcast facili i ties." Douglas Elleson, KRON-TV program manager, told B*T the station would keep cameras in the hearing chamber until it receives an order from an authoritative source "directing us to terminate our public service activities in this matter." When told about Speaker Rayburn's repeated demands that telecasting be stopped, he said, "Should we be required to terminate our telecasts we will request that newsreel cameras and radio also be barred. We believe we are performing a useful public service and flatly i reject any charge that televising the hearing makes a spectacle of it." Sunday, June 16, William K. Sherwood, 41, was found dead in his Hopkins Marine j Laboratory at Pacific Grove, near Monterey, Calif. Mr. Sherwood had been scheduled to testify before the committee the next day. Mr. Sherwood was said to have written ' a note explaining he had "a fierce resentment of being televised." A friend Attorney [ Bertram Edises, of Oakland, Calif., said the scientist became upset when he heard ! the hearings would be telecast. Frank Tavenner, committee counsel, said Mr. Sherwood had been subpoenaed as a witness. KSOO Favored for Ch. 13 FCC EXAMINER Charles J. Frederick has issued an initial decision favoring KSOO Tv Inc. for ch. 13 in Sioux Falls, S. D. KSOO had made an agreement with competing applicant, Video Independent Theatres Inc., to reimburse Video for expenses incurred in the preparation of its i application. The agreement called for a cash settlement of $2,939.39. Owners of the favored applicant are Morton H. Henkin and family. The Henkins j own and operate KSOO Sioux Falls. Broadcasting • Telecasting k