TV HAS COZY DEAL WITH WHITE HOUSE

For about two years the White House and the television industry have been
engaged in a cozy little enterprise that, on the surface, seems to promise
benefits for everyone.

The administration's anti-drug campaign gets a boost. The television
industry gets to add dollars to the bottom line. But on closer inspection,
it is a deeply unhealthy arrangement that should disturb anyone who
believes in the need for all media - the entertainment industry as well as
the networks - to remain free from government meddling.

Under the arrangement, according to an article in this week's Salon
Internet magazine, television networks have been secretly submitting
scripts for some of their most popular television shows to the White House
Office of National Drug Control Policy as a way of getting more than $22
million worth of credit for required public service advertising. Barry
McCaffrey, President Clinton's drug czar, then allots advertising points
for segments that convey an anti-drug message - a scene in which a youth
rejects an offer of marijuana, for example, or a passage showing a group of
drugged-out teen-agers looking like losers. ...

Whatever its impace on particular shows, exchanging content for dollars is
a bad idea, as ABC-TV has acknowledged by ending the arrangement this
season. In allowing the government to shape or even to be consulted on
content in return for financial rewards, the networks are crossing a
dangerous line. On the far side of that line lies the posibility of
censorship and state-sponsored propaganda.

- - New York Times