TELEVISION'S RISKY RELATIONSHIP

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
teenagers looking like losers.

The idea of exchanging content for advertising credits evolved from a 1997
Congressional mandate that for every dollar of anti-drug advertising
purchased by the government from a network, the network was required to
donate another dollar's worth of advertising time to discourage drug abuse.
When ad sales were down, networks were more willing to sell the government
what was, in effect, half-price advertising time. With ad sales booming, the
McCaffrey content-for-dollars alternative offered a way for networks to free
advertising time to be sold at normal rates.

The networks and the White House deny that content was changed or creativity
dampened in the process.

But according to the article, examples of how segments were revised to send
their message are "as subtle as a brick through a window." The public,
however, has no way to assess the revisions, since the White House has
stubbornly and unwisely refused to release even the list of participating
programs.

Whatever its impact on particular shows, exchanging content for dollars is a
bad idea, as ABC-TV has acknowledged by ending the arrangement with the
White House this season.

In allowing government to shape or even to be consulted on content in return
for financial rewards, the networks are crossing a dangerous line they
should not cross.

On the far side of that line lies the possibility of censorship and
state-sponsored propaganda.