Broadcasters Must Not Buckle Under Government Pressure

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Little frightens an investor more than the arbitrary political whims of a government to hamper business operations or to coerce the parroting of political views. No person would rationally invest in an independent newspaper or broadcast station in Iran or Cuba. Not so in America, or at least so we hope.

Last week, Senator Reid, a Democrat of Nevada, and other senior members of the Senate Democrat leadership sent Disney CEO Robert Iger a letter laced with inaccuracies and — much worse — threats. The senators objected to Disney’s airing the miniseries “The Path to 9/11.” Disney, and scores of independent affiliates around the country, held firm against governmental coercion.

The senators’ letter states: “The Communications Act of 1934 provides your network with a free broadcast license predicated on the fundamental understanding of your principle obligation to act as a trustee of the public airwaves in serving the public interest.”

The Communications Act of 1934 says nothing of the sort.The good senators may wish to learn that practically every broadcaster in America received its licenses the old-fashioned way: by purchase with large sums of money. In the case of Disney, those sums stretched into the billions of dollars.

Moreover, each year Disney and every other broadcaster pay the federal government “license fees” cumulatively in the tens of millions of dollars that are de facto taxes because they substantially exceed any reasonable administrative cost of the administrative processing of the licenses.

Further, American broadcast licenses are not “predicated” on a quid pro quo to act in the “public interest” as interpreted by only one or a small group of government officials.Except for statutorily proscribed material such as obscene programming, broadcasters have no reason to expect the government officials to ban certain programming.

The letter was inappropriate for at least two other reasons. First, it fails to distinguish between news and drama. Mike Wallace’s “60 Minutes” interview with Iranian President Ahmadinejad was presumably news. The persons depicted on “The Path to 9/11” were actors, not the principals.

Second, when government officials become arbiters of the truth or virtue in programming, as in much of the rest of the world, the public is all the poorer. Public review of programming helps cleanse it of falsehoods. Two years ago, CBS’s “60 Minutes” ran a segment regarding President Bush that was based on forged documents. The forgeries were discovered not because government officials compelled CBS to refrain from broadcasting the segment but precisely because ex post public review revealed the forgeries.

Mr. Ahmadinejad has challenged Mr. Bush to a debate at the United Nations. The leader of a country where television and newspapers are controlled by the government finds no possibility of looking bad in public. If a debate were to go badly for Mr. Ahmadinejad, it conveniently would not be shown in Iran. The independent and free press of America, dismissive of governmental efforts to silence its inconvenient episodes, would not be as accommodating.

Rather than threaten Disney, the senators might have personally thanked Mr. Iger for his consistent contributions to the Democratic candidates and even the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. Along with many other Disney executives, Mr. Iger has been a reliable supporter of Mr. Reid’s political causes. But the senators’ letter demonstrates that fear of unfavorable programming outweighs any amount of political contributions in a free society.

Mr. Reid and his colleagues had an opportunity to take the moral high ground (to the extent such a position is possible when a government official writes for the purpose of intimidating a private party and coercing involuntary action). They could have written: “While we dislike your programming, we will defend your right to broadcast it and will not tolerate any government interference with programming decisions.”

But instead, the letter concludes: “Should Disney allow this programming to proceed as planned, … the reputation of Disney as a corporation worthy of the trust of the American people and the United States Congress will be deeply damaged.”

Whether Disney’s public reputation is helped or harmed by “The Path to 9/11” remains to be seen. But the reputation of our government is harmed when officials coercively seek to change the behavior of law-abiding businesses.

The letter was an aberration that should not be repeated.

A former FCC commissioner, Mr. Furchtgott-Roth is president of Furchtgott-Roth Economic Enterprises. He can be reached at hfr@furchtgott-roth.com


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