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.

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.