Breaking Through Power: The Media

Harnessing Progressive Reform to 21st Century Media

Nicholas Johnson
May 24, 2016

Ralph Nader’s “Breaking Through Power Conference”
Day 2, “Breaking Through the Media”
Washington, D.C., May 23-26, 2016
Video of the 20-minute presentation of these remarks can be found here, with many thanks for the efforts of Gregory Johnson's ResourcesForLife.com. YouTube videos of Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, and Day 4 are also available. Here is the Web page providing information about the Conference program and speakers, and Ralph Nader's Web page.

My name is Nicholas Johnson, and I'm not running for anything.

What you see here is my old FCC uniform.

I would have come with the long hair, shaggy beard, and cowboy mustache, but there wasn't time to grow them back.

So I settled on this Bernie Sanders haircut instead.

Having known and worked with Ralph and his family for the past half-century, it is a great pleasure to be able to share this commemorating conference with him, you, and The Real News Network audience.

He’s asked that I say something about the origins and values of American broadcast regulation, the demise of that system, and the past efforts of media reformers – to which I will add some thoughts on the options open to us in this 21st Century.

Because I am used to speaking for entire semesters at a time, my challenge this morning is putting all of this into my allotted 20 minutes.

Here goes.

“Long ago in a galaxy far away,” while European countries were choosing government ownership of things like railroads and telephone systems, Americans chose private ownership – modestly restrained by government regulation.

And so it was with broadcasting.

Most countries went the way of the BBC – ultimately a non-profit, public corporation.

Its first leader, Lord Reith, set the BBC’s public service standard: programming representing “all that is best in every department of human knowledge, endeavor and achievement.” He created the equivalent of our Fairness Doctrine, and a BBC as independent of commerce as of government – funding would come directly from listeners’ fees. Japan’s NHK, Sweden’s Sveriges Radio, and other countries followed this model.

Today's Corporation for Public Broadcasting is the American version.

In the 1920s, as the sale of radio receivers accelerated to 100 million, so did the number of stations increase. Their signals’ interference made intelligible reception difficult to impossible. As has so often been the case, it was the broadcasters who came to the government for regulatory relief. Government licensing was seen as a solution to chaos.

Of course, an added benefit was the elimination of competition.

Then Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover responded to their request by calling a series of Radio Conferences. From them came the recommendations that ultimately became the Radio Act of 1927 and the Communications Act of 1934.

It was the usual American compromise between the ideology of private ownership and the pragmatism of regulation through licensing. But the values at the foundation of the Act, shared by broadcasters, government and public alike, were very similar to those of Lord Reith.

Lord Reith’s “public service” standard became the Commission’s standard for the granting, renewal, or revocation of licenses – that radio programming serve “the public interest.”

Even broadcasters tended to agree with Secretary Hoover’s comment, echoing Lord Reith’s judgment, when Hoover said: "It is inconceivable that we should allow so great a possibility for service [for news, entertainment, and education] to be drowned in advertising chatter." [at n. 17]

Lord Reith’s preference for public over private ownership was reflected in the House floor debate about the Act. As Congressman Luther Johnson warned his colleagues, “American thought and . . . politics will be . . . at the mercy of those who operate these stations. . . . [If] placed in the hands of . . . a single selfish group . . . then woe be to those who dare to differ with them.” [at n. 31]

Ultimately, the language of the Act began, “It is the purpose of this Act . . . to maintain the control of the United States over all the channels of radio transmission; and to provide for the use of such channels, but not the ownership thereof . . ..”

Without an FCC license a studio, transmitter, and antenna tower had little more than scrap value. With that license they were worth millions.

Moreover, the FCC told the licensee where it could build, set its minimum and maximum hours of operation, its transmitter’s power, and direction of its signal. There were limits on how many licenses one could hold, maximums on advertising, and required minimums of educational and cultural programming, news, public affairs, and public service announcements. The Commission’s 1946 “Blue Book” provided even greater detail.

Thus, FCC licensees were owners in name only – with little more discretion than government employees or contractors might have when using the public’s airwaves; sort of like fast food or motel franchisees.

When I arrived at the Commission a half-century ago, the FCC was supposedly still regulating broadcasters according to standards at least similar to those in the 1920s and 1930s.

But in Washington, like most industries, broadcasting had its own sub-government [pp. 16-19, nn. 49-59] – dominant corporations, their lobbyists, a trade association, trade press, eating club, agency employees, legislators, their staff, and a bar association for communication lawyers – all of whose futures and fortunes turned on successfully protecting their circled wagons.

Moreover, the money in this politics flowed upstream. Other industries had to pay to play [pp. 19-24, nn. 60-67]; they gave so-called campaign contributions to seek favor with elected officials. The reverse was true for the broadcasting industry. Elected officials gave most of their campaign contributions to the broadcasters! And the time and attention the broadcasters were selling to politicians was something they could also give for free.

So if the broadcasters were not successful in winning over the FCC’s commissioners and staff with private chats, free meals, receptions, golfing outings, and the prospects of future employment, they could always get what they wanted, or prevent what they feared, by going to their friends on Capitol Hill.

As a result, I discovered, no matter how outrageous a broadcaster’s performance might have been, the likelihood of a license not being renewed was so rare as to be indistinguishable from “never.” Rules were adopted, and then waived. Congressman Luther Johnson’s warnings about private power had been long since forgotten, as merger after merger was approved.

That, and more, was what motivated me to write some 400 separate opinions during my term. Charged with unfairly picking only the worst cases, I co-authored a Yale Law Journal article titled, courtesy of the Beatles, “A Day in the Life.” In it we itemized an entire week’s agenda, selected at random, and demonstrated how every decision that week left much to be desired.

My term coincided with a citizen activist period in American history – Ralph’s “Nader’s Raiders” consumer organizing, anti-war groups’ protests, civil rights legislation, Black Power demands, the women’s movement, protest songs, and “The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour.”

In such times it was inevitable that failures of the media, as well as the Commission and the Congress, would ultimately lead to the creation of a media reform movement as well. As I put it at the time to anyone who would listen, “Whatever is your first priority, your second priority must be media reform.”

It took a variety of forms. Al Kramer’s Citizens Communications Center provided the legal support for hundreds of media reform groups in communities across the country. Stations’ license renewals were challenged for failure to serve their local communities, or discriminatory employment practices. Some groups wanted to save classical music stations. Others created community, or even illegal pirate radio stations.

Video portapaks, the predecessor of today’s ubiquitous smartphone video, led to the interest in video art, guerrilla television, video activism and what became cable television’s public access channels.

Foundations and donors were willing to provide at least minimal financial support for these efforts. And because the uprising had kind of caught the media establishment off guard, there were a few years of media reform Camelot.

Following this, as at least some of you have lived through, the swamp waters returned. Many in the establishment made a sharp right turn to follow Grover Norquist. As he put it, “I'm not in favor of abolishing the government. I just want to shrink it down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub."

Drown it they did.

At the FCC this took the form of what was variously called “re-regulation” or more accurately “de-regulation.” License terms were lengthened. Restrictions on maximum station ownership were reduced to the point of non-existence. The Commission would not even acknowledge that a license renewal challenge had been filed, let alone address it. Seldom if ever did a merger fail to meet the commissioners' definition of “the public interest.”

As the fickle foundations focused on a new squirrel and lost interest, media reform organizations lost their funding. The courts lost their appeal. The Congress and Commission lost their sense of hearing.

Which brings us to this day in May of 2016.

What are we to make of the Tea Party, Occupy movement, and the millions of aware and angry Americans following Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders? Are we on the cusp of another burst of media reform revolution, enthusiasm and possibility?

Using the name of our day at this four-day conference, what can we do to “break through the media”?

It would be nice if we could wrap up today with an easily-remembered list of “five things you can do to improve the media!” But it’s not so simple. There are even more than five categories of things progressive activists can do before we start listing specific tasks – let alone trying to reinvigorate the FCC.

Here are a few, with illustrative examples.

Destination. Let’s start with the obvious. What’s your goal? How would you know if you or your organization were ever “successful”? As the old line has it, “If you don’t know where you’re going the odds are very slim you’ll ever get there.”

In what specific ways do you wish “the media” were different – and why? Are you trying to increase contributions, or members, for your local organization, and think positive column inches in the paper will help? Or are you trying to improve our political campaigns and the public officials they produce? And your goal is to raise the entire American electorate’s interest in articles and programming about the daily diet of policy wonks.

Opportunity. The lack of a legal right does not remove all opportunity. The Supreme Court has given media owners legal control of content. [at n. 24] But as we’ve recently observed, one can even win the presidential nomination of a major American political party without paying for broadcast time or newspaper space.

Progressive causes do not always do all they could to promote their efforts with public radio and television.

Even commercial media offer us opportunities with op ed columns and letters to the editor in newspapers, guest appearances on television, calls to radio talk shows, developing relationships with editors, producers, journalists and on-air personalities, making use of free kiosks, store windows, and bulletin boards.

Education. There’s something to be said for the suggestion, “if you really want to improve the quality of American media, start by spending more public money on K-12 and higher education” – specifically, in our case, on media literacy. If the media consumer can’t tell the difference between the junk news in ABC’s evening program and the truly significant there’s little more we can do.

Media. What do we mean by “media”? From the 1920s through the 1960s CBS and NBC were the dominant networks. ABC was said to make it only “a two-and-a-half network economy.” Media reformers wanted more diversity. Well, we got it – hundreds of cable channels, thousands of smart phone apps, billions of Internet users and Web pages, Facebook and Twitter accounts.

The new social media have proven their worth to reformers, from the Arab Spring to the 2016 presidential campaign, and offer constantly evolving applications to all of us.

They've also required a re-definition of “journalist” – should it include everybody with a Web page, blog, email list, Facebook, YouTube or Twitter account?

Even more significant is that this increased diversity and quantity of communication brought with it a demise of the wealthy newspapers that formerly provided the electronic media with content.

TV no longer offers a 21st Century version of your grandparents’ Walter Cronkite, the most trusted American. It no longer provides a huge swath of the citizenry a shared body of consensus-building quality journalism each evening.

And the resulting political polarization has paralyzed the Congress and prevented compromise. According to a recent TED talk, it’s even reprogrammed our brains.

Alternatives. Are foundations and nonprofits a part of the answer? The Iowa Center for Public Affairs Journalism is filling some of the void in my home state. Created and run by Lyle Muller, a quality former editor of a major Iowa paper, Iowa Watch is making investigative pieces available to Iowa papers.

What can we do to encourage our fellow citizens to include within their volunteer activities the possibility of studying, following, and then writing up the work of local institutions no longer covered by a beat reporter – say, a zoning board, county government, local hospital, major corporation, or university?

Regulation. It’s unlikely we’ll soon return to the micromanaging regulation of broadcasters of the 1920s through 1950s.

Nor would it make as much difference today as it did then were we to do so. An increasing source of Americans’ audio and video consumption today comes via the Internet, from Web pages, podcasts, YouTube, Netflix, Amazon, and independent cable programming producers. But that doesn't mean the old media are devoid of influence.

The FCC and Congress are still potential forces worth encouraging to support our efforts – as we've attempted, for example, with maintaining Network Neutrality.

What we do to use and strengthen the Freedom of Information Act, or whistle-blower protections, are also a form of government support of journalism.

I might even offer what Donald Trump would call “suggestions” that we consider reinstating a modified Fairness Doctrine – at least as a shared value – and conceptualize an antitrust principle regarding media mergers that goes beyond the economic marketplace to the “marketplace of ideas.”

Pressure. Even without the force of government, pressure from private “regulation” of a sort can have its impact.

Here are five examples.

(1) So far as I know the only time the levels of TV violence were reduced was as a result of the 1970s efforts by the National Citizens Committee for Broadcasting to identify and publicize the advertisers supporting the most violent programs.

(2) Project Censored reveals annually the ten most significant stories that failed to receive adequate presentation by mainstream media. FAIR and the journalism reviews provide continual oversight of media performance.

(3) For 41 years the Minnesota News Council received and publicized citizens’ grievances regarding the media.

(4) The academy can contribute much more than it has in terms of professors’ scholarship, seminars, and doctoral dissertations. More of our 15,000 school districts could give their students the tools of media literacy.

(5) And of course we'll all want to join Ralph's latest venture in breaking through media power, called simply “Voices.”

There’s much more to say, but no more time to say it. So I thank you for your attention, and very much look forward to the rest of the presentations at this historic conference.

# # #

TIF Apology

March 18, 2014, 7:20 a.m.

Note: And see "Addendum: If North Dakota Can Prosper from a State-Owned Bank, Why Not Iowa?" at the bottom of this blog essay/op ed column; and "TIFs: Too Many Negatives," March 25, 2014.

Note: The following was submitted to the Iowa City Press-Citizen with the headline, "TIF Apology," and was published this morning with the headline below. That headline's use of the word "transparency" is somewhat misleading. The column is not calling for governments to be more forthcoming and transparent regarding the details of their gifts to for-profit enterprises under the current system. [See, e.g., "TIFs: Too Many Negatives," March 25, 2014.] It is calling for a different system, a recognition of the reality that ours is a blended corporate-government economy, one that should substitute investments by taxpayers for what are now simply gifts. Taxpayers should get an ownership share, and a return on their investments. (The hard copy version also had a link to a nonexistent site. As reproduced in this blog essay the link is correct.) -- N.J. [Photo credit: Patrick McDonough.]

TIF: If You Can't Beat 'Em, Insist on More Transparency
Nicholas Johnson
Iowa City Press-Citizen
March 18, 2014, p. A7
I now realize that the dozens of my columns and blog essays over the years, itemizing in detail the evils of TIFs, grew out of a faulty premise.

It is not easy to admit a mistake, especially when one has made it so often. But you are owed that admission – along with a fuller explanation.

We’ve heard that “seeing is believing.” However, it is also true that “believing is seeing.” And what my upbringing and early education imbedded in my brain was a belief that colored my vision like the rainbow from a prism in the sun.

And what was that belief? It was that we have a capitalist, free private enterprise, market economy. Oh, sure, we had socialist enterprise as well: the Interstate highway system, national and state parks, libraries, public schools and universities. But business did business and government did government.

Now comes the realization that what I once saw so clearly was but a child of the ignorance born of ideology. It was the believing that made possible my seeing -- like the lines from the poem, “Last night I saw upon the stair/A little man who wasn't there.” (Hughes Mearns, 1899.)

I was believing in, and seeing, an economy that wasn’t there.

That’s why TIFs were seen to be an aberration, a cancer simultaneously attacking both capitalism’s foundation and taxpayers’ pocketbooks. (For numerous links to sources, see “TIFs: Links to Blog Essays,” http://fromdc2iowa.blogspot.com/2014/03/tifs-links-to-blog-essays.html.)

Like "Amazing Grace," I was blind, but now I see: We don’t have a capitalist system. We probably never did.

So how should we describe our economy? The word “fascism” carries too much baggage from World War II -- dictators, suppression of opposition, aggressive nationalism, and even racism. “Fascism” doesn’t describe America today. But from Washington, D.C., to cities, counties and states all across America, in terms of an economy, ours is the economy of fascism.

The more acceptable word today, “corporatism,” is less accurate. Because the economy we have is a blend, more resembling a purée than a salad or a stew with identifiable ingredients.

Cities’ taxpayers who cannot afford the tickets to an NFL, or even college football game, invest billions in stadiums, given as gifts to attract the billionaires who own teams of millionaires.

States have multiple funds of taxpayers’ money used to compete with other states by giving it away to attract businesses.

Washington is essentially an open bazaar, awash in money gladly given and generously rewarded.

Is this system corrupt? Of course. Welcome to the real world. All economic systems can have corruption – communist, socialist, capitalist, or our fascist.

Is our fascist economy less efficient than a true capitalist economy? Absolutely. Everybody is handling other peoples’ money. Is it less humane than a socialist system might be? Of course. When it comes to minimum wages or safer working conditions, our fascist economy is still driven by the character Gordon Gekko’s belief, in the movie "Wall Street," that “Greed is good.”

Folks, in the words Walter Cronkite used to sign off the CBS Evening News, “And that’s the way it is.” That’s the system we have. Get used to it. The beneficiaries love it. The victims don’t revolt.

What can we do? Tweak the system. Insist our governments invest our money rather than giving it away; that they take a share of the ownership – and the profits. Insist on detailed accounting of the return on our money they’re investing.

If a fascist economy is wrong, but intractable, we can at least try, as John Carver bemoans in another context, to “do the wrong thing better.”
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Nicholas Johnson maintains the website www.nicholasjohnson.org and blog http://FromDC2Iowa.blogspot.com.

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Addendum: If North Dakota Can Prosper from a State-Owned Bank, Why Not Iowa?
It only makes sense, so long as we're committed to a fascist economy, that we should try -- as the last line of the op ed column suggests -- "to do the wrong thing better."

One of the most obvious positive tweaks to our fascist economic system would be for governments to enter the banking business. (a) Instead of putting such balances as cities, counties and states have into commercial banks, or credit unions, they could earn more on our money by doing the banking themselves. (b) As a part of a proposal that financial aid to business favor loans over gifts (or what would hopefully become "investments" earning a return) the governmental unit could make loans to the favored businesses from the government's own bank.

Think this is a crazy idea? Think again. It's a fascist economy that's the crazy idea. City, county and state-owned banks are a big improvement over what we have, in our effort to do this "wrong thing better."

But who would ever do such a thing? How could you ever find a government willing to take on its local, commercial bankers?

Take a look at North Dakota: Robb Manelbaum, "What North Dakota’s Public Bank Does for Small Businesses," New York Times, March 13, 2014

North Dakota uses the bank to funnel deposits from state agencies back into the state’s economy through . . . loans, teaming with local private banks that initiate the transactions with borrowers. The state-owned bank typically takes half of a business loan, and the interest rate on the state-lent portion is normally one or two percentage points below the market rate.

In January, the Bank of North Dakota played a bit part in an ideological skirmish in the blogosphere after a young activist, Jesse A. Myerson, suggested putting a public bank in every state as one of “Five Economic Reforms Millennials Should Be Fighting For.” The piece led to some interesting discussions, including this response that Mr. Myerson’s suggestions were actually conservative reforms — and that the state-owned bank was responsible for there being more small-business loans in North Dakota than in neighboring states. . . .

[P]ublic banking advocates point most hopefully to efforts in Vermont. Last week, 15 Vermont towns passed resolutions urging the state legislature to establish a public bank. It could be very beneficial to the small community banks and the state. Even big cities could do this . . ..

North Dakota, Vermont -- why not a "City of Iowa City Fascist Economy Public Bank"? How about it Councillors? # # #

Goldman, Sachs and Shearer

August 14, 2010, 7:45 a.m.

Given the recent exceptional popularity of "Living Outside the Box; From Thoreau to Ferentz," August 9, 2010, if that's the blog entry you're looking for you can find it here.

Entertainment, Social Commentary and Public Policy
(bought to you by FromDC2Iowa.blogspot.com*)
Harry Shearer is one of those guys in Hollywood who has excelled at virtually every form of creative endeavor -- with the possible exception of re-painting the Sistine Chapel.

The fulsome coverage of his career in Wikipedia describes him as "an American actor, comedian, writer, voice artist, musician, author and radio host." That scarcely does his creative and prolific career justice, but it does give you a simplistic sense of its variety and reach. "Harry Shearer," wikipedia.org. And see his Web site.

Among other things, he is a sensitive observer, and critic, of the American scene. As such, he is a contributor to the hundreds of years of involvement of entertainment in general, and music in particular, in the cause of social commentary and "activism" -- which is just another word for "democracy." The Sixties -- both the 1860s and the 1960s have been such times, with the hidden messages in Spirituals, and less well-disguised approach of the "Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour" in the 1960s, John Stewart's "Daily Show" today, and Pete Seeger seemingly having been singing forever.

Another example, provided by Harry Shearer, and all too effectively hidden within his creative outpouring in my view, is a little song he wrote, recorded and released October 6, 2009, about the financial collapse in general and Goldman Sachs in particular. In it, he succeeds in explaining both what was going on, and the attitudes of those engaged in it -- which seem to me to bear at least some similarity to those exhibited in the ten year old movie "Boiler Room" (2000) and 1987 film "Wall Street" (from which the video clip, above, of the Gordon Gekko (Michael Douglas) "greed is good" speech is taken).

The song is not exactly today's news, "more's the pity," and that's a part of my concern. Goldman Sachs' role in the global financial collapse from which we have yet to emerge -- like the BP's pollution of the Gulf of Mexico -- are seen by the corporations involved, as well as the media, as a "public relations" challenge. The solution? (1) Produce and televise some slick commercials proclaiming your sincerity and sorrow, and perhaps pay to underwrite some CPB programming. (I once proposed the best way to fund public broadcasting would be for the Department of Justice Antitrust Division to file more law suits, because every time it filed one the corporate defendant inevitably got its face out there as a "good guy" by funding a PBS or NPR program.) (2) Just wait it out; ultimately the public (and their representatives) will forget about it, having shifted their focus to a more current crisis.

Music, humor, films, and other forms of entertainment can stand and fight that tendency. (I recently watched a "Boiler Room" DVD again.) And Harry Shearer's "Mr. Goldman and Mr. Sachs" lively tune and lyrics keep running through my mind long after I've forgotten exactly what it was the New York Times' stories and editorials detailed about the firm's abuses.

The song is available from YouTube.com, iTunes and Amazon for 99 cents, and I recommend you give it a listen.

Its energized beat and bouncy and irreverent delivery can't be communicated by the lyrics alone. But here they are anyway, to give you a sense of the message. [If Harry Shearer wants me to remove them from this blog entry I will, of course, do so. But with no advertising on my blog, I have nothing to gain by making them available, and anyone who was a potential purchaser of the song before should be more, rather than less, likely to be so now. And if you find, and can correct, any errors in my transcription please put them in a comment on this blog entry.]

So here it is, . . .

"Mr. Goldman and Mr. Sachs"
Harry Shearer

When Mr. Goldman met Mr. Sachs
Business ran on railroad tracks
The world was simpler, you can't forget
When Mr. Sachs and Goldman met

Said Mr. Goldman, "For years and years,
Our guys have got the most between the ears"
Said Mr. Sachs, "Let's unhook some reigns,
And find new ways to profit off our traders' brains"

Spinning gold out of flax,
Mr. Goldman and Mr. Sachs

Spinning gold out of flax,
Mr. Goldman and Mr. Sachs

"Up to the Clintons," says Sachs with glee,
"Our former chief now runs the Treasury"
Slapped Mr. Goldman to Mr. Sachs,
"Everything's OK, we can relax"

"We're blowing bubbles," Mr. Goldman crowed,
"We making money out of money owed"
"On Wall Street our names should be up on plaques,"
Bubbled Mr. Goldman to Mr. Sachs

Balls so big they stretched the slacks
Of Mr. Goldman and Mr. Sachs

Balls so big they stretched the slacks
Of Mr. Goldman and Mr. Sachs

"The century's turning," Mr. Sachs opined,
"Our new kind of trains boggle the mind"
Bragged Mr. Goldman with a toss of his head,
"One of our guys runs the New York Fed"

Noted Mr. Sachs as the market soared,
"We're totally wired in each department and board"
"We regulate ourselves, the wind's at our backs,"
Said the jolly Mr. Goldman to a blithe Mr. Sachs

Their regulators are really claques,
For Mr. Goldman and Mr. Sachs

Their regulators are really claques,
For Mr. Goldman and Mr. Sachs

Said Mr. Goldman to Mr. Sachs,
"This sly little system is showing some cracks"
Mr. Sachs to Mr. Goldman said,
"We got it covered, go back to bed"

The hustle’s urbane Mr. Sachs recalled,
"We may get a haircut, but we won't go bald"
"Any bailout move will be comfy and lax,"
Mr. Goldman was reassured by Mr. Sachs

"Bear Stearns went down," Mr. Sachs told his friend,
"And Lehman Brothers met a harsher end"
"Merrill Lynch was sold off by a fax,"
A dour Mr. Goldman told Mr. Sachs

"It's time," Mr. Goldman said, "to pull some rank"
So presto, said Mr. Sachs, "We'll become a bank"
"We'll be covered by the payers of tax,"
Exhaulted Mr. Goldman to Mr. Sachs

Mr. Sachs explained, "We're insured by AIG"
Mr. Goldman responded, "That's fine with me"
"Our risky bets will be paid off in full,"
Said Mr. Goldman, more than ever a raging bull

"Unemployment is rising," Mr. Goldman observes
But their partnership is still riding on nerves
"Profits in the billions, ignore the attacks,"
Says a flush Mr. Goldman to a flush Mr. Sachs

Spinning gold out of flax
Mr. Goldman and Mr. Sachs

Spinning gold out of flax
Mr. Goldman and Mr. Sachs

Spinning gold out of flax
Mr. Goldman and Mr. Sachs

Spinning gold out of flax
Mr. Goldman and Mr. Sachs

Spinning gold out of flax
Mr. Goldman and Mr. Sachs

And now to return to what some will consider the more mundane approach to economics policy, consider these excerpts -- and the column in its entirety: Froma Harrop, "Regulation Made Canada Fat and Happy," creators.com, August 12, 2010 (copyright by the Providence Journal and reprinted in numerous newspapers around the country):

Suppose the U.S. government had posted a budget surplus in 12 of the past 13 years. Suppose not a single major American financial institution had failed or needed a government bailout. Suppose the U.S. economy grew at an annual rate of 6.1 percent in the first quarter of this year, rather than at 2.7 percent.

Wouldn't that make you happy?

These cheering economic indicators happen to be reality in Canada. They did not come about because Canadians are more virtuous or they don't have subprime mortgages (they do) or they didn't keep interest rates very low (their rates were much like ours). What Canada had was a civic culture that wanted government to regulate financial activity.

What we have is an elite willing to risk everyone else's economic security to enable a few hotshots to win big at the casino of recklessness and fraud — while maintaining a variety of taxpayer backstops to reduce their risks. The joint never gets closed, also thanks to the large numbers of ordinary citizens trained to holler "socialism" every time the government tries to set a ground rule. A satanic belief in the rightness of free markets to punish the unsophisticated almost halted the creation of a Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. . . .

So how are Canadian businesses doing these days relative to ours? It's true that the Standard & Poor's index of 500 large U.S. companies has done pretty well this year. But the Toronto exchange's index of large-cap Canadian stocks did 27 percent better.

Periodic booms and busts don't have to be Americans' fate. Some people get very rich off them. But for ordinary folk, slow and steady wins the race. Support for letting government install some speed bumps to enhance their financial stability has left Canadians fat and happy. We could live the same way.

As we reflect upon Wall Street's role in our global economic collapse we have options: we can sing about it, laugh about it, cry about it, or read and write public policy analyses and essays. Unfortunately (to return to singing about it), as in "you can't win, you can't break even, and you can't get out of the game," Simon and Garfunkel clarified our situation in "Mrs. Robinson,"

Sitting on a sofa on a Sunday afternoon
Going to the candidates debate
Laugh about it, shout about it
When you've got to choose
Ev'ry way you look at it, you lose

"And that's," as Walter Cronkite used to say, "the way it is, Saturday morning, August 14, 2010" (unless, as Ms. Harrop informs us, you move to Canada). ["Walter Cronkite," wikipedia.org ("Cronkite is well known for his departing catchphrase 'And that's the way it is,' followed by the date on which the appearance is aired.")]
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* Why do I put this blog ID at the top of the entry, when you know full well what blog you're reading? Because there are a number of Internet sites that, for whatever reason, simply take the blog entries of others and reproduce them as their own without crediting the source. I don't mind the flattering attention, but would appreciate acknowledgment as the source -- even if I have to embed it myself.
-- Nicholas Johnson
# # #

Cronkite in Context: Walter, CBS or the Era?

July 31, 2009, 12:30 p.m. (August 19, 2009 Don Hewitt addition)

Insights from Cronkite's Success
Shed Light on Today's Media Failures
(brought to you by FromDC2Iowa.blogspot.com*)

This is my last broadcast as the anchorman of The CBS Evening News; for me, it's a moment for which I long have planned, but which, nevertheless, comes with some sadness. For almost two decades, after all, we've been meeting like this in the evenings, and I'll miss that. But those who have made anything of this departure, I'm afraid have made too much. This is but a transition, a passing of the baton. . . . And anyway, the person who sits here is but the most conspicuous member of a superb team of journalists; writers, reporters, editors, producers, . . .. Furthermore, I'm not even going away! I'll be back from time to time . . .. And that's the way it is . . .. I'll be away on assignment, and [others] will be sitting in here for the next few years. Good night.

Embedded in Dan Shelley, "Commentary: Cronkite & The CBS Broadcast Center; Legendary Newsman's Aura Permeates Every Inch Of Building," WCBS-TV & wcbstv.com, July 18, 2009.

That was how Walter Cronkite left us the last time, in 1981. Change "last broadcast" to "last day," "two decades" to "nine," and it works pretty well for his most recent departure two weeks ago. Had he witnessed our response to his passing I suspect he would say again, with equivalent modesty that "those who have made anything of this departure, I'm afraid have made too much."

And it would be neither inaccurate nor immodest of him to prophesy that "I'll be back from time to time." After all, he was known to most Americans as but an image on a television screen, and given the wonders of videotape and other storage media those images can always return. And, to quote Dan Shelley's headline, above, this "legendary newsman's aura" will continue to permeate not only the newsroom at WCBS-TV, but newsrooms of all media, and journalism classrooms, for decades to come.

Like the thousands who have written about his passing, I too acknowledge his greatness -- as a human being as well as a journalist. Like others whose lives intersected with his, I too have my personal stories. Like all Americans with access to a radio and later a television set during the last half-century or so, I also looked to him to tell me "the way it is."

But I've hesitated to leap into my own commentary because it seemed to me there was an even bigger story here. I'm not confident I'll ever fully understand what it is, but I certainly have a greater insight after two weeks' thought than I had on July 17. How much of "Walter Cronkite" was "Uncle Walter," how much "CBS," and how much the times, the era, in which he emerged?

But first, a sampling of some of my own Walter Cronkite and CBS stories.

We were both born in the midwest, he in St. Joseph, Missouri, and I in Iowa City, Iowa. We both attended the University of Texas, he about the time I was born, I about 18 years later. (In later years our pictures were both hung in the UT Journalism Building, along with that of Bill Moyers, as DeWitt Carter Reddick Award recipients.) Although my own accomplishments and prominence were those of a pygmy compared to Walter Cronkite, our most public times overlapped -- his as anchor of the half-hour "CBS Evening News" (1962-1981), mine in Washington from 1963-1979 (three presidential appointments, including Maritime Administrator, FCC commissioner, presidential adviser to President Carter, a congressional race, and chairing the National Citizens Committee for Broadcasting).

Cronkite knew of my interest in journalism in general, and television news in particular, and offered me a standing invitation to visit the set and control room whenever he was doing the news from Washington. These were days of film -- occasionally arriving only minutes before the show went live -- and the tension surrounding what would and would not be processed in time to air, along with the split-second commands to the camera operators (and Walter) made the scene, from my perspective, about as exciting a place to be as any I could imagine.

Earlier, as Maritime Administrator, I had learned the power of his broadcast. One of my responsibilities was moving shiploads of wheat to India. There were disputes with the unions, and various government agencies, that made this task something between very difficult and impossible. Cronkite mentioned the problem one evening in a newscast; the next day the orders came down from the White House, following which the ships promptly sailed. It was an insight and lesson that stayed with me when later confronting the power of the mass media as an FCC commissioner.

At the FCC I tried to focus public and congressional attention on the importance and responsibility of broadcast journalism. Broadcasting's greatest failing, I said, was not so much the harm that it did (though there was plenty of that) but the good it could do for America that it failed to do.

In 1967, the second year of my seven-year term on the FCC, CBS launched a new program called "60 Minutes" which I praised as a step in the right direction. It wasn't long, however, before the show's low ratings were cited by those who thought the experiment had failed and the program should be canceled. I urged the network to stick with it, give it time, that it takes awhile for a show to build a following. Not that my urging had anything to do with it, but the program was kept on the air and for many years thereafter reigned as number one in the ratings -- not number one among news programs but number one, period.

Addition: August 19, 2009: Mike Hale, "An Appraisal: Don Hewitt, The Man Who Kept ‘60 Minutes’ Ticking," New York Times, August 20, 2009, p. C1 ("In the wake of Mr. Hewitt’s death on Wednesday, much will be written about how the CBS newsmagazine “60 Minutes,” his signal creation, paved the way for a good share of what we see on television today. . . . [A] moment should be taken simply to honor the success: no show in the history of television has been as widely popular for as long as '60 Minutes.'").

CBS had a Sunday morning show called "Face the Nation." On September 14, 1969, I was the guest. I recently accidentally came upon a "Face the Nation" transcript of my exchanges on that occasion with Mike Wallace and George Herman of CBS and Richard Burgheim of Time magazine. They were heated exchanges, and I was at my outrageous worst. Given that the show was not promoted, and the only listings had it at the wrong time, I was not surprised that one of the letters I received from a viewer explained that she had only seen it because she'd accidentally turned on her TV set while dusting it. (As the producer later explained to me, "You're not paranoid, Nick, you've got real enemies.") All told we had more than 7000 letters in my office (if I now remember correctly), and someone from CBS told me that the network got more mail about that show than any "Face the Nation" program prior to that time. (If you're interested in what was said, just click on the link above.)

[* Why do I put this blog ID at the top of the entry, when you know full well what blog you're reading? Because there are a number of Internet sites that, for whatever reason, simply take the blog entries of others and reproduce them as their own without crediting the source. I don't mind the flattering attention, but would appreciate acknowledgment as the source, even if I have to embed it myself. -- Nicholas Johnson]

Most of the occasions when I was the subject of a CBS' or New York Times' news item it involved my work. But years later, when I had long since settled into what would prove to be a 17-year period as a single man once again, Kathleen Nolan (then national president of the Screen Actors Guild) and I began dating and a personal item made Cronkite's newscast.

Kathleen had a friend with a small house on the north side of Oahu where we decided to spend a few days. Next door, among others, was a young boy who lived in a tree, could dive meters below the surface without a scuba tank, walk on coral, and smoked pot. (Asked why he wasn't in school, he replied, "Because the surf's too high.") When we considered a walk in the near-by forested mountain area he gave us suggestions and offered to accompany us. Since we didn't know the area, and assumed he knew it like the back of his hand, we followed him.

We climbed up a mountain under bushes with long thorns that permitted sliding under while going up, but would have torn the hide off of anything trying to go back down. We weren't concerned not only because we had our experienced guide, but because my mountain experience from Colorado and the Shenandoah was that there are usually animal trails along a mountain ridge that we could probably take back to our cottage. We were wrong on both counts. Our guide did not know this territory, and the trail along the top was very narrow, with drops on both sides precluding descent. Assuming we would ultimately get back down, we continued on only to find the trail ended with an equally impassible drop. We were stuck. We were supposed to have dinner with our friends Dorothy and John Craven (who was then running for Lt. Governor of Hawaii). When we didn't show, he got the Honolulu Fire Department helicopter out looking for us. Our guide, of course, came equipped with matches (though no pot, as I now recall), so we started a little (controlled) fire to alert the helicopter we saw coming for us. For some reason the fire did not get their attention, and they left us on the mountain overnight.

There followed a number of contradictory stories running on the wire services. We were lost in a forest. We had gone down in a small plane at sea. We were lost at sea in a boat. I later heard from some of the other women I was dating at the time of their concern -- both as to what might have happened to me, and as to whom I was with at the time.

The next day the helicopter sighted us, and we swung down in baskets from the mountaintop to the road below -- where the local TV cameras were ready to record our rescue. The reporters' first question to Kathleen: "What were you wearing?" (Dressed in shorts and climbing boots she sarcastically explained that she had been in a designer ball gown while climbing, but changed into shorts for the interview.)

And what does Walter Cronkite have to do with this misadventure? It was a slow news day apparently, so he included a report of our safe return on the evening news.

Another thing Cronkite said on his last day as anchor, quoted above, was "the person who sits here is but the most conspicuous member of a superb team of journalists; writers, reporters, editors, producers . . .."

And that's the point I'm about to make about Walter Cronkite, CBS, and the state of broadcasting during the 1960s and 1970s -- as contrasted with today.

CBS was, as Cronkite himself said, much more than the anchor on the Evening News. And my relationship was with CBS as much or more than with Cronkite.

Our next door neighbors, and probably closest family friends, in Bethesda, were the Pierpoints; Bob was then the CBS White House correspondent. Although I never met Edward R. Murrow (who died in 1965), I enjoyed a dinner with his widow, Janet, one evening in Pat and Bob's home. My sister, who started her career in television broadcasting while in high school ("Let's Pretend" and "It's Fun to Find Out" on award-winning WMT-TV, Cedar Rapids, were her creations), had gone on to work for NBC, CBC, BBC, and others. Before moving on to other things, she also worked with Cronkite and CBS News as both a researcher and on-air reporter. And as was necessarily the case for someone in my position at that time, I had an acquaintance with a number of CBS reporters and other personnel.

Which brings me to what is perhaps the broader significance of the "CBS era" in broadcasting. Its success was a tribute to more than just the "team of journalists" -- however professionally skilled, ethical, and hard working they may have been.

It was a tribute to CBS' owner, Bill Paley (whom I never met), its president Frank Stanton (whom I did meet), its general counsel, Dick Salant (with whom I publicly tangled in print), CBS News President Fred Friendly (whom I knew in a variety of his roles). It was they who made the decisions to spend more on CBS News than any other network was willing to spend, far more than the FCC would ever have required. They who lived the admonition, "with great power goes great responsibility." They who exercised that responsibility to all America as best they knew how. They who took pride in the creation and operation of one of the world's preeminent television news organizations.

Looking back the 40 years to those days it's ironic that I should ever have included CBS in my criticisms of the industry. They somehow seem, by comparison with today, the "golden years of responsible television journalism."

And so I'm left to wonder, "why?" What happened during the last three decades to create the state of the broadcast media we see today?

Certainly a part of the answer is the "Wall Street cancer" that infects the majority of American capitalism. Capitalism used to be run by capitalists. Now it's run by bankers and multi-million-dollar hired hands.

You knew who owned CBS in those days; where the buck stopped -- and where the bucks came from. It was Bill Paley. He was driven by forces other than the goal to become "the richest man in the cemetery." He took personal pride in CBS' accomplishments. (And as he once told Edward R. Murrow, when trimming his sails, he also felt it in the pit of his stomach when, in his judgment, CBS was stepping over the line.) But the result was that profit maximization was not paramount; the money spent on CBS News was money that would otherwise have been in Bill Paley's pocket.

Today's news judgments, and news budgets, are made by Wall Street financiers with little respect for journalism or sense of national responsibility. They know, as the saying has it, "the price of everything and the value of nothing." They not only want profits (and the multi-million-dollar bonuses they make possible), they want ever-increasing profits. Hard times? Fire the journalists, reward the executives.

Dick Salant was ferocious defender of CBS' First Amendment rights. I disagreed with him often, but always respected him. Journalism was serious business; it was no place for music or other promotional nonsense. When President Lyndon Johnson complained to Frank Stanton (LBJ's Austin station was a CBS affiliate, I believe) about CBS' Vietnam coverage Stanton never even mentioned the conversation to the reporter the president disliked. When Cronkite thought the Vietnam war unwinable, he simply said so. Unlike today's lapdog media, CBS never felt it had a responsibility to be a cheerleader for war for the White House.

Necessarily, TV reporters and anchors in those days had come up through print journalism (Cronkite with UPI). There were no TV stations to train them. My sense (devoid of data) is that at least some of today's TV's "reporters" have had neither that experience, nor its equivalent, in either journalism school or prior employment. (As a communications study student once told me, the reason he was choosing broadcasting rather than newspapers was because he didn't really like to research and write.)

Another factor, in fairness to ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, and the others, is that we no longer have what we used to call a "two-and-a-half-network economy." We have hundreds of channels on cable, and even more from the online Internet sites (including blogs). There's a little more competition than there used to be -- and a lot less inflation-adjusted revenue.

The reasons we do not, today, have a Walter Cronkite are many. But among them is the fact that, even if there were a potential Cronkite out there somewhere there is no media operation that would hire him or her -- or place where such a journalist would stay for long even if hired.

"That's the way it is" -- and a significant part of the story of Walter Cronkite's life, and death, that didn't receive the attention it might have during our grieving and memorial services.
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* Why do I put this blog ID at the top of the entry, when you know full well what blog you're reading? Because there are a number of Internet sites that, for whatever reason, simply take the blog entries of others and reproduce them as their own without crediting the source. I don't mind the flattering attention, but would appreciate acknowledgment as the source, even if I have to embed it myself. -- Nicholas Johnson

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