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Source: New York Times
Pubdate: April 3, 1997
Contact: letters@nytimes.com

JOURNAL / By FRANK RICH

ABC Does Drugs

In the nogooddeedgoesunpunished sweepstakes, pity poor ABC.
Unable to win Nielsen rating points, the number3 network
spent all of March in search of Brownie points by staging a "March Against
Drugs," in which everyone from its soapopera stars to its news anchors
enlisted in the drug war by participating in publicservice commercials
and special drugoriented programming. The payoff? ABC's efforts have
been sniped at by journalists and drugwar reformers like Common
Sense for Drug Policy and ignored by most everyone else. The heavily
publicized grand finale of ABC's long March a town meeting with kids
and parents conducted by Peter Jennings on Sunday night drew a
pitiful 6 percent of the TV audience, the smallest of the network's season.
Billed by ABC as the "DDay" of its antidrug offensive, it was more
reminiscent of Tet.

On the phone last week, Mr. Jennings described the month as a
goodfaith effort and a learning experience for him and his colleagues.
True, true. But the entire drug war, America's most costly defeat since
Vietnam, has been in good faith. The only hope for fixing it is to learn
from its failures as exemplified by ABC's. The network's good deeds
in its March offensive, and there were some, were defeated by
hypocrisy, fatuous sloganeering and a reluctance to ask more the sporadic
questions about the premises that have made the drug war a quagmire
swallowing up lives, money and hope. Teenage drug use has
doubled since 1992.

ABC's mantra for the month was not "Just Say No" but, more or
less, "Just Talk About It." Over and over the network hectored parents to
talk or, more voguishly, "communicate" with their kids about
drugs. Who would disagree? But ABC, in its own parental role, showed
just why such conversations often fail: Adults lose credibility with
teenagers when they talk one game and play another. By running beer
commercials all March on programming that reaches as many teenagers as its
antidrug pitches, if not more, ABC promoted the sex appeal of a legal
drug, alcohol, that causes more death and destruction than marijuana. Is
its owner, Disney, so straitened by Michael Ovitz's settlement that it
couldn't kick its addiction to alcohol ad dollars for even 31 days? Had it
done so, that would have impressed some teenagers I know far more
than any sitcom stars delivering sermons.

ABC News's preference for propaganda over journalism during "March
Against Drugs" was also a lost opportunity. The network did put a few
drugwar critics on the air including one who briefly raised questions
about the Partnership for a DrugFree America, a participant in "March
Against Drugs" but such initiative was rare. Though the network began
and ended the month by highlighting the scary story of those Woburn,
Mass., teenagers who almost died by overdosing on prescription muscle
relaxants, it didn't follow up its own initial report's most telling
detail: One victim's mother said her child had been through D.A.R.E.,
the country's most prevalent drugeducation program. Had ABC been reporting
instead of preaching, that revelation would have prompted a sustained
look into recent studies arguing that D.A.R.E. is as ineffectual as it is
costly ($600 million in public funds). Why raise the question only to beg
it?

Nor did ABC News want to question the current Administration's
inconsistent and losing prosecution of the drug war (typified by President
Clinton's condemnation on Tuesday of hardliquor but not beer ads on
TV). Instead Mr. Clinton became an ABC onair personality,
gueststarring in antidrug spots and granting "Good Morning America"
an "exclusive" interview in which he praised ABC profusely and fielded
only softball questions about his drug conversations with Chelsea. This
isn't journalism so much as a mutually selfserving exercise in image
enhancement at a time when both a floundering network and a
scandalscarred Administration need it badly.

Back during Vietnam, the joke was that the fastest way to end the war
was to put it on ABC then also number 3 because it would be
canceled as quickly as its doomed programs. This time ABC seems
determined to prolong an illfought war against drugs, not in the least by
sending some bored viewers in search of more potent stimulants.

Copyright 1997 The New York Times Company

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