JUST SAY 'NO' TO BIG BROTHER

The failing war on drugs has caused so much collateral damage to America's
precious constitutional safeguards that it may have been unrealistic to
think our most precious one would go unscathed.

What really hurts, though, is the way media executives sold the First
Amendment so cheap.

No sense blaming the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy for
doling out millions of dollars in regulatory relief in return for oversight
of network television scripts. Or even blaming Congress for the 1997 law
that requires media outlets to sell ad time to anti-drug campaigns for half
price.

It is in government's nature to be invasive. That's why the first Americans
insisted on a Bill of Rights.

What the Framers did not reckon on, however, was a multimedia oligopoly in
which corporate profitability would so readily override good judgment.

So it did not take long for sharp minds in advertising to come up with this
modest proposal: Instead of forgoing millions in ad revenue to accommodate
federal public service announcements, why not include an anti-drug message
in the shows themselves? Of course, someone at the White House would have
to decide how much of a dispensation each script was worth. But we're all
on the same side in the war on drugs. What's the harm?

The harm, of course, is the awful precedent set by any arrangement in which
government confers financial favor on selected media based on content.

This isn't the River Rubicon being crossed. It's the Atlantic Ocean.

If it's OK for "Beverly Hills 90210" to claim a credit for an anti-drug
script, why not extend the courtesy to "7th Heaven" for promoting
Judeo-Christian values? Or whatever values happen to be in vogue at 1600
Pennsylvania Avenue.

One can forgive media middle-managers for a certain amount of confusion on
these matters. Traditional distinctions are fast fading between news and
entertainment, fantasy and reality, art and commerce. Advertisers are
paying big bucks to have their gym shoes, soda pop and sport-utility
vehicles used as props. Dan Rather, the news anchor icon, recently gave his
Millennium report in front of a live shot of Times Square in which another
network's neon logo was electronically replaced by the CBS eye.

Reality or promotion? Artistic freedom or government bribe? The new giants
of Big Media each need to assign someone who can determine and patrol the
difference.