CULTURE WATCH

Sensing censorship

Expose corporate bias, risk limited exposure: That's the conundrum for a new television documentary.

by Jim Julian
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11/5/97

If you've often suspected there's something the mainstream news isn't telling you, there's a new "must see" documentary about to hit the television airwaves. The catch is, you may not get to see it.

Fear and Favor in the Newsroom is a remarkable documentary about self-censorship within media organizations. Produced last year by Beth Sanders and Randy Baker, the documentary takes a close look at what happens when news organizations censor journalists and kill stories.

Ironically, while the documentary will be provided free via National Educational Telecommunications Association satellite to all Public Broadcasting System stations this Sunday, it remains to be seen whether it will hit the airwaves. As with many shows of its type, local PBS stations may air the documentary at the time of broadcast, tape it for later use or ignore it all together.

"We haven't decided to air it or not air it at all. In fact, we haven't seen the program," says Dave Devereaux, a public relations representative at Detroit's WTVS (Channel 56). He added that it is likely the station would tape the program at the time of broadcast, and review it for possible airing at a later date.

But a few hours earlier, Ron Demo, of the station's donor services department, had not read the NETA information about the program and indicated WTVS had no plan to air or tape it.

Additionally, as of press time, five Michigan PBS stations had no plans to air the documentary, at least not at the time of its satellite broadcast.

In fact, only one program manager, Bruce Turner of WNMU in Marquette, had heard of the film and planned to tape it.

This isn't the first hurdle the documentary's producers have had to jump in getting their show out to the public.

Beth Sanders, director and co-producer, says national PBS initially rejected the documentary at "just about every level it could be rejected at."

According to Sanders, officials of the regular PBS series "Frontline" refused to consider airing the story, saying the documentary was "good territory, but we're going to pass."

"I think PBS stations have internalized some of the market-driven concern that we do explore in there (in the movie)," remarks Sanders.

That market-driven concern is at the heart of Fear and Favor in the Newsroom. The hourlong documentary recounts overt acts of corporate self-censorship and the discipline of journalists by prestigious news organizations. It also shows news you won't see anywhere else.

For example, Fear and Favor shares footage censored from a report by PBS's "MacNeil-Lehrer NewsHour" on nuclear waste disposal in Needles, Calif. It also contains footage that was censored by NBC because it documents the extensive civilian loss during the Gulf War.

In addition to these stories, the documentary explains that the subtle self-censorship of the mainstream news media keeps us from hearing about such issues as the hazards associated with nuclear power, the cost of nuclear power plants, the ways in which insurance and car dealers take advantage of consumers, racist practices in the business community and corporate corruption.

It also makes the connection between the corporations that control the news media and the content of the news we see.

To do this, narrator and journalist Studs Terkel takes viewers on a thorough exploration of the question, "What happens when the press is owned by the powerful? How do journalists report on the environment, business, issues of war and peace when these same issues touch on the interests of the people they work for?"

As the documentary points out, this is the case with the biggest mainstream networks: ABC is owned by the Disney Corp., CBS is owned by Westinghouse, and NBC is owned by General Electric.

Fear and Favor captures this modern corporate-dominated world, in which journalists' careers can take sudden downturns after reporting too vigorously and too often on issues that touch on the interests of the powerful.

As an example, Fear and Favor covers the consequences for reporters at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, where, apparently, the reward for managing editor Bill Kovach's support of vigorous investigative reporting was a disagreement with the owners that resulted in his resignation.

Among the troublesome reports he printed were a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigation into the racist lending practices of Atlanta banks, and an investigation into alleged bribery by the Coca-Cola Co.

A member of the multibillionaire Cox family, which owns the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, was on the Coca-Cola board of directors at the time.

From this, and interviews in the documentary, we discover that mainstream journalists learn quickly what phrases like "nobody is much interested in that" really mean. Journalists who don't learn how to "play the game" often have their careers ruined or leave the profession entirely.

Fortunately for the public, public broadcasting is only partially controlled by powerful corporations. As Fear and Favor's Beth Sanders notes, "Subscribers pay for the building and the staff, and corporate underwriting pays for the programming."

Thus, public broadcasting has a door open to independent programming that the mainstream media doesn't have. And as long as the program is available for free, the door is half-open for an eventual PBS airing of Fear and Favor, as airing it won't damage the station's finances. In fact, a PBS affiliate made the documentary's broadcast possible in the first place.

"Our real champions have been the San Jose PBS station," says Sanders. "They supplied us with the online final edit at no cost, with total editorial control by us. And they handled the negotiations with PBS."

Still, few PBS stations are likely to air the documentary on Sunday, but many may be influenced by calls from their subscribers to tape it for airing at a later date.

"I still think that if this is widely broadcast on PBS it is not going to damage the stations' self-interest," says Sanders. "This is the kind of stuff their subscribers are interested in."

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