Audio clip excerpt of Agnew's speech.
Scroll down for the text transcript.
It follows the full text transcript of
Spiro T. Agnew's On The Media speech, delivered at
the Mid-West Regional Republican Committee Meeting in Des
Moines, Iowa - November 13, 1969.
I think it's
obvious from the cameras here that I didn't come
to discuss the ban on cyclamates or DDT.
I have a subject
which I think if of great importance to the
American people. Tonight I want to discuss the
importance of the television-news medium to the
American people.
No nation depends
more on the intelligent judgment of its
citizens. No medium has a more profound
influence over public opinion. Nowhere in our
system are there fewer checks on vast power. So,
nowhere should there be more conscientious
responsibility exercised than by the news media.
The question is: Are we demanding enough of our
television news presentations? And, are the men
of this medium demanding enough of themselves?
Monday night, a week ago, President Nixon
delivered the most important address of his
Administration, one of the most important of our
decade. His subject was Vietnam. His hope was to
rally the American people to see the conflict
through to a lasting and just peace in the
Pacific. For thirty-two minutes, he reasoned
with a nation that has suffered almost a third
of a million casualties in the longest war in
its history.
When the President completed his address--an
address that he spent weeks in preparing--his
words and policies were subjected to instant
analysis and querulous criticism. The audience
of seventy-million Americans--gathered to hear
the President of the United States--was
inherited by a small band of network
commentators and self-appointed analysts, the
majority of whom expressed, in one way or
another, their hostility to what he had to say.
It was obvious that their minds were made up in
advance. Those who recall the fumbling and
groping that followed President Johnson's
dramatic disclosure of his intention not to seek
reelection have seen these men in a genuine
state of non-preparedness. This was not it.
One commentator twice contradicted the
President's statement about the exchange of
correspondence with Ho Chi Minh. Another
challenged the President's abilities as a
politician. A third asserted that the President
was now "following the Pentagon line." Others,
by the expressions on their faces, the tone of
their questions, and the sarcasm of their
response, made clear their sharp disapproval.
To guarantee in advance that the President's
plea for national unity would be challenged, one
network trotted out Averell Harriman for the
occasion. Throughout the President's address he
waited in the wings. When the President
concluded, Mr. Harriman recited perfectly. He
attacked the Thieu government as
unrepresentative; he criticized the President's
speech for various deficiencies; he twice issued
a call to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee
to debate Vietnam once again; he stated his
belief that the Viet Cong or North Vietnamese
did not really want a military take-over of
South Vietnam; he told a little anecdote about a
"very, very responsible" fellow he had met in
the North Vietnamese delegation.
All in all, Mr. Harriman offered a broad range
of gratuitous advice--challenging and
contradicting the policies outlined by the
President of the United States. Where the
President had issued a call for unity, Mr.
Harriman was encouraging the country not to
listen to him.
A word about Mr. Harriman. For ten months he was
America's chief negotiator at the Paris Peace
Talks--a period in which the United States
swapped some of the greatest military
concessions in the history of warfare for an
enemy agreement on the shape of a bargaining
table. Like Coleridge's "Ancient Mariner," Mr.
Harriman seems to be under some heavy compulsion
to justify his failures to anyone who will
listen. The networks have shown themselves
willing to give him all the air-time he desires.
Every American has a right to disagree with the
President of the United States, and to express
publicly that disagreement.
But the President of the United States has a
right to communicate directly with the people
who elected him, and the people of this country
have the right to make up their own minds and
form their own opinions about a Presidential
address, without having the President's words
and thoughts characterized through the prejudice
of hostile critics before they can even be
digested.
When Winston Churchill rallied public opinion to
stay the course against Hitler's Germany, he did
not have to contend with a gaggle of
commentators raising doubts about whether he was
reading public opinion right, or whether Britain
had the stamina to see the war through. When
President Kennedy rallied the nation in the
Cuban Missile Crisis, his address to the people
was not chewed over by a round-table of critics
who disparaged the course of action he had asked
America to follow.
The purpose of my remarks tonight is to focus
your attention on this little group of men who
not only enjoy a right of instant rebuttal to
every Presidential address, but more
importantly, wield a free hand in selecting,
presenting, and interpreting the great issues of
our nation.
First, let us define that power. At least
forty-million Americans each night, it is
estimated, watch the network news. Seven million
of them view ABC; the remainder being divided
between NBC and CBS. According to Harris polls
and other studies, for millions of Americans,
the networks are the sole source of national and
world news.
In Will Rogers' observation, what you knew was
what you read in the newspaper. Today, for
growing millions of Americans, it is what they
see and hear on their television sets.
How is this network news determined? A small
group of men, numbering perhaps no more than a
dozen "anchormen," commentators, and executive
producers, settle upon the 20 minutes or so of
film and commentary that is to reach the public.
This selection is made from the 90 to 180
minutes that may be available. Their powers of
choice are broad. They decide what forty to
fifty-million Americans will learn of the day's
events in the nation and the world.
We cannot measure this power and influence by
traditional democratic standards, for these men
can create national issues overnight. They can
make or break--by their coverage and
commentary--a moratorium on the war. They can
elevate men from local obscurity to national
prominence within a week. They can reward some
politicians with national exposure, and ignore
others. For millions of Americans, the network
reporter who covers a continuing issue, like ABM
or Civil Rights, becomes, in effect, the
presiding judge in a national trial by jury.
It must be recognized that the networks have
made important contributions to the national
knowledge. Through news, documentaries, and
specials, they have often used their power
constructively and creatively to awaken the
public conscience to critical problems.
The networks made "hunger" and "black-lung
disease" national issues overnight. The TV
networks have done what no other medium could
have done in terms of dramatizing the horrors of
war. The networks have tackled our most
difficult social problems with a directness and
immediacy that is the gift of their medium. They
have focused the nation's attention on its
environmental abuses, on pollution in the Great
Lakes, and the threatened ecology of the
Everglades.
But it was also the networks that elevated
Stokely Carmichael
and George Lincoln
Rockwell from obscurity to national
prominence. Nor is their power confined to the
substantive.
A raised eyebrow, an inflection of the voice, a
caustic remark dropped in the middle of a
broadcast can raise doubts in a million minds
about the veracity of a public official, or the
wisdom of a government policy. One Federal
Communications Commissioner considers the power
of the networks to equal that of local, state,
and federal governments combined. Certainly, it
represents a concentration of power over
American public opinion unknown in history.
What do Americans know of the men who wield this
power? Of the men who produce and direct the
network news, the nation knows practically
nothing. Of the commentators, most Americans
know little, other than that they reflect an
urbane and assured presence, seemingly well
informed on every important matter.
We do know that, to a man, these commentators
and producers live and work in the geographical
and intellectual confines of Washington, D.C. or
New York City--the latter of which James Reston
terms the "most unrepresentative community in
the entire United States." Both communities bask
in their own provincialism, their own
parochialism. We can deduce that these men thus
read the same newspapers, and draw their
political and social views from the same
sources. Worse, they talk constantly to one
another, thereby providing artificial
reinforcement to their shared viewpoints.
Do they allow their biases to influence the
selection and presentation of the news? David
Brinkley states, "Objectivity is impossible to
normal human behavior." Rather, he says, we
should strive for "fairness." Another anchorman
on a network news-show contends: "You can't
expunge all your private convictions just
because you sit in a seat like this and a camera
starts to stare at you . . . I think your
program has to reflect what your basic feelings
are. I'll plead guilty to that."
Less than a week before the 1968 election, this
same commentator charged that President Nixon's
campaign commitments were no more durable than
campaign balloons. He claimed that, were it not
for fear of a hostile reaction, Richard Nixon
would be giving into, and I quote the
commentator, "his natural instinct to smash the
enemy with a club or go after him with a meat
axe." Had this slander been made by one
political candidate about another, it would have
been dismissed by most commentators as a
partisan assault. But this attack emanated from
the privileged sanctuary of a network studio and
therefore had the apparent dignity of an
objective statement.
The American people would rightly not tolerate
this kind of concentration of power in
government. Is it not fair and relevant to
question its concentration in the hands of a
tiny and closed fraternity of privileged men,
elected by no one, and enjoying a monopoly
sanctioned and licensed by government?
The views of this fraternity do not represent
the views of America. That is why such a great
gulf existed between how the nation received the
President's address--and how the networks
reviewed it.
Not only did the country receive the President's
address with a warmer reception than the
networks; so, too, did the Congress of the
United States. Yesterday, the President was
notified that 300 individual Congressmen and 59
Senators of both parties had endorsed his
efforts for peace.
As with other American institutions, perhaps it
is time that the networks were made more
responsive to the views of the nation and more
responsible to the people they serve.
I am not asking for government censorship or any
other kind of censorship. I am asking whether a
form of censorship already exists when the news
that forty-million Americans receive each night
is determined by a handful of men responsible to
their corporate employers, and filtered through
a handful of commentators who admit to their own
set of biases.
The questions I am raising tonight should have
been raised by others long ago. They should have
been raised by those Americans who have
traditionally considered the preservation of
freedom of speech and freedom of the press their
special provinces of responsibility and concern.
They should have been raised by those Americans
who share the view of the late Justice Learned
Hand, that "right conclusions are more likely to
be gathered out of a multitude of tongues than
through any kind of authoritative selection."
Advocates for the networks have claimed a
first-amendment right to the same unlimited
freedoms held by the great newspapers of
America.
The situations are not identical. Where The New
York Times reaches 800,000 people, NBC reaches
twenty times that number with its evening news.
Nor can the tremendous impact of seeing
television film and hearing commentary be
compared with reading the printed page.
We are not going to cut off our television sets
and listen to the phonograph
because the air waves do not belong to the
networks; they belong to the people.
A decade ago, before the network news acquired
such dominance over public opinion, Walter
Lippmann spoke to the issue: "There is an
essential and radical difference," he stated,
"between television and printing.... the three
or four competing television stations control
virtually all that can be received over the air
by ordinary television sets. But, besides the
mass-circulation dailies, there are the
weeklies, the monthlies, the out-of-town
newspapers, and books. If a man does not like
his newspaper, he can read another from out of
town, or wait for a weekly news magazine. It is
not ideal. But it is infinitely better than the
situation in television. There, if a man does
not like what the networks offer him, all he can
do is turn them off, and listen to a
phonograph."
"Networks," he stated, "which are few in number,
have a virtual monopoly of a whole medium of
communication." The newspapers of mass
circulation have no monopoly of the medium of
print.
A "virtual monopoly of a whole medium of
communication" is not something a democratic
people should blithely ignore.
And we are not going to cut off our television
sets and listen to the phonograph because the
air waves do not belong to the networks; they
belong to the people.
As Justice Byron White wrote in his landmark
opinion six months ago, "It is the right of the
viewers and listeners, not the right of the
broadcasters, which is paramount."
It is argued that this power presents no danger
in the hands of those who have used it
responsibly.
But as to whether or not the networks have
abused the power they enjoy, let us call as our
first witnesses, former Vice President Humphrey
and the City of Chicago.
According to Theodore H. White, television's
intercutting of the film from the streets of
Chicago with the "current proceedings on the
floor of the convention created the most
striking and false political picture of
1968--the nomination of a man for the American
Presidency by the brutality and violence of
merciless police."
If we are to believe a recent report of the
House Commerce Committee, then television's
presentation of the violence in the streets
worked an injustice on the reputation of the
Chicago police.
According to the Committee findings, one network
in particular presented "a one-sided picture
which in large measure exonerates the
demonstrators and protestors." Film of
provocations of police that was available never
saw the light of day, while the film of the
police response which the protestors provoked
was shown to millions.
Another network showed virtually the same scene
of violence--from three separate angles--without
making clear it was the same scene.
While the full report is reticent in drawing
conclusions, it is not a document to inspire
confidence in the fairness of the network news.
Our knowledge of the impact of network news on
the national mind is far from complete. But some
early returns are available. Again, we have
enough information to raise serious questions
about its effect on a democratic society.
Several years ago, Fred Friendly, one of the
pioneers of network news, wrote that its missing
ingredients were "conviction, controversy and a
point of view." The networks have compensated
with a vengeance.
And in the networks' endless pursuit of
controversy, we should ask what is the end
value--to enlighten or to profit? What is the
end result--to inform or to confuse? How does
the ongoing exploration for more action, more
excitement, more drama, serve our national
search for internal peace and stability?
Normality has become the nemesis of the evening
news.
Gresham's law seems to be operating in the
network news.
Bad news drives out good news.
The irrational is
more controversial than the rational.
Concurrence can no
longer compete with dissent.
One minute of
Eldridge Cleaver is worth ten minutes of Roy
Wilkins. The labor crisis settled at the
negotiating table is nothing compared to the
confrontation that results in a strike--or,
better yet, violence along the picket line.
Normality has become the nemesis of the evening
news.
The upshot of all this controversy is that a
narrow and distorted picture of America often
emerges from the televised news. A single
dramatic piece of the mosaic becomes, in the
minds of millions, the whole picture. The
American who relies upon television for his news
might conclude that the majority of American
students are embittered radicals; that the
majority of black Americans feel no regard for
their country; that violence and lawlessness are
the rule, rather than the exception, on the
American campus. We know that none of these conclusions is
true.
Perhaps the place to start looking for a
credibility gap is not in the offices of the
government in Washington, but in the studios of
the networks in New York.
Television may have destroyed the old
stereotypes, but has it not created new ones in
their place?
What has this passionate pursuit of
"controversy" done to the politics of progress
through logical compromise, essential to the
functioning of a democratic society?
The members of Congress who follow their
principles and philosophy quietly in a spirit of
compromise are unknown to many Americans--while
the loudest and most extreme dissenters on every
issue are known to every man in the street.
How many marches and demonstrations would we
have if the marchers did not know that the
ever-faithful TV cameras would be there to
record their antics for the next news show?
We have heard demands that Senators and
Congressmen and Judges make known all their
financial connections--so that the public will
know who and what influences their decisions or
votes. Strong arguments can be made for that
view. But when a single commentator or producer,
night after night, determines for millions of
people how much of each side of a great issue
they are going to see and hear, should he not
first disclose his personal views on the issue
as well?
In this search for excitement and controversy,
has more than equal time gone to that minority
of Americans who specialize in attacking the
United States, its institutions and its
citizens?
Tonight, I have raised questions. I have made no
attempt to suggest answers. These answers must
come from the media men. They are challenged to
turn their critical powers on themselves. They
are challenged to direct their energy, talent
and conviction toward improving the quality and
objectivity of news presentation. They are
challenged to structure their own civic ethics
to relate their great freedom with their great
responsibility.
And the people of America are challenged,
too--challenged to press for responsible news
presentations. The people can let the networks
know that they want their news straight and
objective. The people can register their
complaints on bias through mail to the networks
and phone calls to local stations. This is one
case where the people must defend themselves;
where the citizen, not the government, must be
the reformer; where the consumer can be the most
effective crusader.
By way of conclusion, let me say that every
elected leader in the United States depends on
these men of the media. Whether what I have said
to you tonight will be heard and seen at all by
the nation is not my decision; it is not your
decision; it is their decision.
In tomorrow's edition of the Des Moines Register
you will be able to read a news story detailing
what I said tonight; editorial comment will be
reserved for the editorial page, where it
belongs. Should not the same wall of separation
exist between news and comment on the nation's
networks?
We would never trust such power over public
opinion in the hands of an elected
government--it is time we questioned it in the
hands of a small and unelected elite. The great
networks have dominated America's airwaves for
decades; the people are entitled to a full
accounting of their stewardship.
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449 BC. Greece won against enormous odds. Here
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