Broadcasting Telecasting (Oct-Dec 1957)

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Be sure to sh You'll be glad GOVERNMENT FUND FOR REPUBLIC TO PROBE TV • Mass media project will analyze government-tv relationship • Then it will study free speech application to tv, FCC role The Fund for the Republic will embark on a "study" of the tv medium. In announcing the fund's decision last week, Robert M. Hutchins, president, noted that two "additional projects" are to be carried out as parts of the fund's continuing study of a free society. One of the projects will deal with the mass media of communication (beginning with tv) and the other will be devoted to political parties, pressure groups and professional associations. Thus, the fund, an independent nonprofit institution set up originally with Ford Foundation millions, can be added to a lengthening list of groups inquiring into television, though nearly all of them have been confined heretofore to congressional and governmental inquiries. The mass media project, according to Mr. Hutchins, will begin with an "analysis of the relationship between government and television." The project, he said, will include a study "of the application of the First Amendment's guarantees of free speech to the medium of television and an analysis of the role of the FCC as a regulatory body in this field." To underscore tv's importance to society (and to the fund), Mr. Hutchins observed: "Surveys have shown that people spend more time with television than with magazines, newspapers and radio combined. "The latest estimates indicate that more than 41 million American homes have television sets and these sets are in operation several hours a day. It has become increasingly clear that television is having a tremendous impact on our society." As yet, no budget has been set for the project. Originally the fund was set up in 1951 with a $1 million appropriation of the Ford Foundation. Subsequently (February 1953), the foundation allocated an additional $14 million to the fund. (It was at that time the fund assumed a completely independent status.) The tv project is an outgrowth of a recommendation by the fund's "Committee of Consultants on the Basic Issues." The fund Thursday turned down a Broadcasting request for a copy of the original recommendation, noting that it is for "internal" use. Members of the consulting committee included A. A. Berle Jr., an attorney in New York, author and former assistant secretary of state; Scott Buchanan, philosopherauthor and former dean of St. John's College; Eugene Burdick, political scientist at the U. of California and novelist; Eric F. Goldman, Princeton U. professor and Bancroft Prize winner;" Clark Kerr, chancellor, U. of California at Berkeley and labor economist; Henry R. Luce, editor-publisher Life, Time and Fortune; John Courtney Murray S.J., theologian at Woodstock College and editor of Theological Studies; Reinhold Niebuhr, vice president and graduate professor, Union Theological Seminary; Isidor I. Rabi, Nobel Prize physicist and chairman, general advisory committee, Atomic Energy Commission, and Robert Redfield, U. of Chicago professor of anthropology. Named "especially responsible for the mass media study" is Mr. Goldman, at one time a member of Time's editorial board. Among the books he has written are Rendevous With Destiny and The Crucial Decade. Three members of the fund's board of directors will act as liaison directors on the project: Alicia Patterson, editor and publisher of Newsday; Bruce Catton, editor, American Heritage magazine, and Harry S. Ashmore, executive editor, Arkansas Gazette. The fund's staff director for the project will be Frank E. Kelly, a vice president who served as U. S. director of the International Press Institute's study of world news in 1953. Mr. Kelly said plans are underway for meetings and conferences to take place probably next month. At that time a blueprint for study will be made. Most likely, the fund first will review reports already issued and relating to the application of the free speech amendment to tv. The group also can be expected to review studies and reports of congressional committees and others. The objective of the study is to digest all available material and see what points have been covered which "need to be developed and clarified." The fund's reports in past years have carried in their listings a project entitled "Commission on Performance of Mass Media," described as "for exploration of a continuing agency to appraise the performance of the media of mass communication." The fund in May 1955 authorized $25,000 for this project. Basically, the Fund for the Republic itself is dedicated to freedoms and civil liberties. It was founded to "support activities directed toward the elimination of restrictions on freedom of thought, inquiry and expression in the U. S. and the development of policies and procedures best adapted to protect these rights in the face of persistent international tension." WWLP (TV) Plan Comments Asked The FCC last week invited comments by Jan. 17, to the petition by Springfield Television Broadcasting Corp. (WWLP [TV], ch. 22) Springfield, Mass., to substitute ch. 15 for ch. 75 in Concord, N. H., ch. 21 for ch. 15 in Portsmouth, N. H., ch. 75 for ch. 30 in St. Johnsbury, Vt., ch. 69 for ch. 74 in Bennington, Vt., and give ch. 74 to Springfield, Vt. It also denied the petition by Telecasting Inc. (WENS [TV] ch. 16) Pittsburgh, Pa., for rule making to add a fourth commercial vhf channel to the Pittsburgh area by (1) shifting ch. 9 from Steubenville, Ohio, to Pittsburgh, and ch. 16 from Pittsburgh to Steubenville, or (2) adding ch. 6 to Pittsburgh by deleting ch. 12 from both Erie, Pa., and Clarksburg, W. Va., and adding it December 23, 1957 • Page 63