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USA Edition | Today Is Friday, March 12, 2010 |
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USA Edition | Today Is Friday, March 12, 2010 |
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| The Case For Frank Stanton: Broadcaster | « Scan Content In The Order It Was Published » | Is Responsible Journalism Old Fashioned? | |
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CBS President Frank Stanton With Newsman Ed Murrow
Stanton became broadcasting’s principal defender of journalism and First Amendment rights.
Cynthia Samuels ( formerly at CBS’ Washington Bureau ) has nominated Frank Stanton, former president of CBS, for inclusion in Newsroom Magazine’s Honor Roll.
The day he became President of CBS in 1946, Frank Stanton found himself at the center of of an expanding enterprise. His immediate job was to take over administrative responsibilities to free up Chairman Bill Paley for talent acquisition and corporate development.
While Paley remained the public face of CBS and sought new acquisitions, Stanton was responsible for running the day-to-day operations of a massive and growing empire. One of his early decisions was to build CBS Television City in Hollywood to help attract west coast entertainment personalities and production resources.
Within five years of taking the helm, Frank Stanton was running a many faceted enterprise comprised of entertainment, musical instruments, publishing, recording, and news divisions. One of those divisions, CBS News, was unlike the others in Stanton’s judgment for news, and news alone was protected by the First Amendment.
Frank Stanton, Don Hewitt preparing for Nixon Kennedy Debate
CBS News was a national institution where Stanton was surrounded by legendary figures in broadcast journalism. Men like Ed Murrow, Don Hewitt, Fred Friendly, and a roster of experienced radio correspondents who made CBS’ news gathering resources arguably better than NBC.
Many believed CBS News to be the heart and soul of the network due to its legendary history and superb journalists. But Stanton saw something very different. His vision was what television news could and ought to be, not what had been inherited from radio.
By the time Douglas Edwards was replaced by Walter Cronkite, Frank Stanton had become broadcast journalism’s principal visionary. While CBS News battled to maintain dominance over NBC, and ABC’s tentative engagement with news programming, Stanton looked to the wider issues.
No matter the accolades earned by CBS News, Frank Stanton understood that broadcast news was, in many ways, not regarded as the equal of print journalism. In the years that followed, Frank Stanton made himself the principal advocate for broadcast journalism.
His defense of, and commitment to broadcast journalism began when he become responsible for overseeing political issues arising from CBS News operations. Stanton and Richard Salant, both of whom had long interest in freedom of the press issues, worked to extended the concept of public service broadcasting articulated by CBS Chairman Bill Paley, Ed Murrow, and Fred Friendly.
Under Stanton, CBS took on a self imposted policy of informing the nation by way of special events, such as live coverage of Congressional hearings, news and political analysis programs, and an array of documentaries.
Stanton became broadcasting’s principal defender of journalism and First Amendment rights. He personally lobbied Congress and in the courts on behalf of the broadcast industry to gain access and First Amendment protections equal to those enjoyed by the print media. Stanton also pressed Congress to lift the Equal Time requirements [ Section 315 of the Communications act ] so that presidential debates could be broadcast. When he succeeded, CBS became the first network to air a Presidential debate, Richard Nixon and John Kennedy, in 1960.
The Nixon Kennedy Debate in Progress
Stanton found himself at the center of a political storm in 1971 when CBS aired a documentary program he had not known about prior to broadcast. When he came home late one night, his wife insisted he stop immediately and watch the last fifteen minutes of the program, explaining it was likely to consume much of his time. She was right, for CBS Reports’ The Selling of The Pentagon, became the center of a firestorm over who was to control the content of broadcast news and documentary programs.
CBS Reports: Selling Of The Pentagon Opening
The documentary revealed how the Pentagon was spending huge sums to promote militarism. The Pentagon cried foul and sought support on Capitol Hill. The issue escalated into a subpoena delivered to Stanton and CBS to deliver source materials and the outtakes, the film footage not used in the broadcast, to the House commerce committee. Stanton refused, claiming that the materials were protected by the freedom of the press guaranteed by the First Amendment.
What Stanton saw as a First Amendment issue, the Congress saw as wrongful invasion of their turf and prerogatives. Stanton took a stand to protect broadcast journalism that put his network and his person in jeopardy of financial ruin, if not jail.
The Selling Of The Pentagon would later be compared to The Washington Post’s decision to resist governmental pressure to reveal the source of the Pentagon Papers. At the threat of being jailed for contempt of Congress, Frank Stanton stood firm. In the end he was alone, for no one else was at personal risk, but Stanton refused any compromise that would have set a precedent for broadcast journalism yielding editorial control to the government.
In the end, Stanton won, and in the doing, he made broadcast journalism the equal of all others in terms of access and First Amendment protections. Here’s what he had to say about it in his ordeal during taping for his Oral History at Columbia University:
It was a fishing expedition of the first order. And I think they finally settled for wanting the outtakes that we didn’t use and the reporters’ notebooks and things of that kind.
It didn’t reduce our stand but it made — by narrowing the demand — it more difficult in the eyes of the public, many of whom said, Why can’t you give them this material? All they want to do is look at it. It was the principle of the government coming in to your newsroom that bothered me.
