DRUG CZAR ON PRIME TIME

SAN FRANCISCO - The next time your favorite television sitcom portrays a
drug-using character sufering for his or her bad habit, don't automatically
credit that touch to the creative genius of the TV dramatists. The drug
note may well have been nudged into the script by aides of Gen. Barry
McCaffrey at the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy.

In a program little-noticed until the Internet magazine Salon rendered a
critical report last week, the government has carved out a role for itself
by influencing the content of primetime TV shows. By submitting scripts in
advance to the anti-drug policy officials, networks can get credit for
warning about the dangers of addiction. They sometimes alter story content
in line with suggestions from the drug czar.

There's a powerful financial lure for the broadcasters to accommodate Uncle
Sam as a script consultant. Anti-drug messages that pass muster are chalked
up against a requirement that the networks run public-service ads
denouncing drug use. The advertising time thus liberated is available for
sale to commercial buyers at a higher rate. The networks in this manner
have fattened their collective incomes by $22 million.

What's wrong with this?

Mainly that the networks have surrendered a portion of their creative
independence to a federal bureaucracy. That's an erosion of free expression
under the First Admendment.

Another unsavory aspect of the anti-drug tactic, whatever its admirable
objective of discouraging drug abuse, is its secrecy. McCraffrey did
outline the system of story-line credits to a congressional subcommittee
last fall, but the information was largely unreported. Neither federal
officials nor network flacks were exactly effusive about how programs were
being spiked with anti-drug content. So quiet was the process that several
producers of programs submitted for government approval did not know it was
going on.

Even though the anti-drug insertions are defended by the White House, the
general's aides are squeamish about giving all the details. An official
listed some shows that had been reviewed, but declined to provide the
complete list. If it is such an aboveboard effort in the public interest,
with no Big Brother implications, let's take all the wraps off and label
altered programs with "government-provided content."

- - San Francisco Examiner