In the fall of 1969, Vice President Agnew startled the networks by charging that they
were biased in their presentation of the news and monolithic in their bias on such matters
as Vietnam, Republicans, student dissent, etc. The uproar he provoked is history. A
year earlier, a professional journalist had anticipated the question, how does one go
about proving scientifically a charge of bias? She undertook to tape the critical 7 p.m.
news show during the seven weeks before the election of 1968 when the presidential campaign
had got underway between Hubert Humphrey and Richard Nixon. We are here to discuss her
findings and her techniques. Edith Efron is a staff editor of TV Guide, but implores me
to remind you that her work has nothing to do with TV Guide. Some of her books, she is
an analyst of network programming trends and problems are used in university communications
courses across the country. She has served as a staff writer on the New York Times magazine
and is managing editor of the special editorial department of Look magazine. Clearly she has
an inside view of the establishment. Her BA is from Columbia, her MS from the Columbia
School of Journalism. I take it that although Mr. Andrew Rooney is not exactly familiar
with the findings of Ms. Efron, he is prepared to dispute them. This he is sure to do most
elegantly. Mr. Rooney has for years worked in network television. He was named by Time
magazine not long ago as, quote, the most felicitous nonfiction writer in television.
He has earned many awards including on Emmy, written books, and directed and produced a
score of documentaries. Not long ago he quit CBS not in protest against its bias, but against
its failure to do more with documentaries. I'd like to begin by asking Ms. Efron, how
would you summarize the findings of your project which I should add are being published this
week by the Nash Publishing Company under the title Network News is Biased. Ms. Efron?
Actually the title has been changed. It's called The News Twisters. Thank you. The initials
of which are TNT. The findings, the broadest summary I could give would be this. First,
that the three networks are news agencies with a single political philosophy. Two, that
their orientation could be described as liberal, democratic, with a certain sympathy for some
left positions. Not by any means a radical philosophy, but rather left liberal. Third,
that the charges of bias of the major groups who have most vocally protested the networks
are all valid, namely the Agnew silent majority charges, the black charges of racism, and
new left charges of distortion and censorship. That these are not contradictory charges and
that they are not due to selective perception as the networks say, but emerge from a visible
and definable selective pattern within the networks themselves, within their news selections
themselves. The next broad conclusion that I reach is that there are a great many network
newsmen of great prominence who do know that this bias exists and have said so, or in part
at various times both before and after the Agnew speech. And consequently that when network
management declares with great righteous wrath that it is neutral, objective, scrupulously
fair, that it is being less than candid. There is some legitimate confusion in their minds,
but I think there is some active lying going on as well. Those would be the major conclusions.
Perhaps a fourth, that the situation is enormously dangerous because so long as you have actual
bias on the air of a publicly owned medium, which is supposedly regulated by a fairness
doctrine and when huge numbers of citizens are aware of this bias and are intensely angered
by it, it is a set up for an assault on the First Amendment from which we might not recover.
Okay, well, Miss Trulia, do you want to come in at this point or would you rather we ask
Miss Effron first to be a little bit more specific about how she reached these conclusions?
It's a little bit like how do you conclude that there is gravity, isn't it? Everybody
knows this bias exists.
Yes, I'd be delighted to hear her say it. I read her book and I was looking for it, but
I didn't find it.
Miss Effron, do you want to reply to that challenge? I think most people who turn on
television and see its principal representatives know that there is some sort of bias there,
perfectly hidden and inadequately hidden in some cases, but what did you actually do?
What did you actually do?
I don't know. I beg your pardon. The assumption that there is bias is part of her. Is that
question?
You're treating me the way Newman treated Dussall.
Yes, well, I'm sorry.
Well, it seems to me obvious that there is and I gather it's obvious to the people like
Teddy White, Brinkley, Hunter.
At the height of the crisis, it was obvious to somewhere between 57 and 70 percent of
the American people. It was not obvious to the networks.
It's a matter of Occam's razor, if anybody.
What is it that you did that permits you to say this, quote, authoritatively? What did
you do?
You're asking for my method.
Yeah.
I take about 50 pages to offer a theory of bias, which I cannot present here, but on
the basis of it, I reach the conclusion that if you analyze the opinion transmitted on
both sides of the controversial issues, and incidentally, this does no violence to network
news, which presents invariably two stereotype sets of slogans on both sides of everything.
So that if you examine what is the opinion presented on the air, transmitted in news
stories, and you simply look to see whether it's relatively equitably distributed in the
pro and con of whatever the controversial.
Well, could you give an example? Say you got Humphrey and you got Nixon. It's seven o'clock
on a Tuesday night, let's say. It's during the campaign.
Right.
Both of them had given a speech. Now, what would be an example of a disparity that you
detected?
Well, simply to, you mean to concretize what I mean by opinion. When you look at a news
story, it's not a monolithic something that leaps out of the sky. It's not a platonic
archetype. It interviews men on the street. It interviews politicians. It interviews labor
leaders. It interviews candidates and so forth, and they are all expressing opinions. So that
if you have a mob of people shouting Humphrey is a fink and another mob of people shouting
that Nixon is a rat and you have a labor...
And if they, yeah, if it's roughly the same number of shouts or whatever, but then you're
even...
What if more people think Nixon is a rat than Humphrey is a fink?
I don't need to be that silly about the same number of shouts. Pardon me.
But I mean, suppose it happens that that afternoon there were more people shouting epithets at
Humphrey than at Nixon.
You wouldn't expect the TV cameras to close out on that disparity, would you?
Not in the least. The question simply is, do they propose over a long period of time,
the time in which the controversy exists, will there be a roughly even expression of
opinion on both sides? On any given day or in any given story, that doesn't make any
difference. But if during a two-month campaign period, and that was about the period that
I studied, you end up with 13 to 1 opinions voiced, let's say, against Nixon, and that
was about what the proportions were, 10 to 1, 12 to 1, 13 to 1. And on top of it, when
at that time in history, Nixon in fact had a commanding lead, then you are entitled to
draw the conclusion that the networks were transmitting opinion that did not reflect
public opinion, but were making a selectivity consciously or unconsciously calculated to
one.
That's a whole other point. Mr. Roney, how do you handle that 13 to 1 business?
It's her figure. I mean, it's like all the figures in her book. They're all her figures.
It's her bias. I mean, she is, she's proposed to be unbiased and it has attacked this problem
in a biased way that networks, news never had.
Is a mathematician who says 4 plus 4 equals 8 biased?
No, of course not.
Well, then why is she...
Why are her figures? Because they are her 4s. She drew the 4s from where?
From the comment, from the...
Oh, but have you read the book?
Yeah.
You have read the book? Well, I have read the book and I have excerpted things. Did you
write all the descriptions, the paraphrasing?
Summaries, yes.
You wrote all of them?
Mm-hmm.
And it was your decision on which was left and which was right?
Do you mean that I, did I consult some pope or other or am I not a committee? I am not
a committee and I didn't consult any pope. Yes, this is my own analysis.
These are your opinions on what is left and what is right. What is anti-Nixon and what
is pro-Nixon?
Put it this way. The network coverage is so fantastically non-intellectual, Andy, that
you would have to be an imbecile not to be able to tell the difference between ho ho
ho chi min being an anti-war comment and I believe that we should not stop the bombing
because of the communist enemy on the other side, which would be a pro, you know, U.S.
policy. The opinions are very lowbrow. They're very simple.
Well, now please, wait.
Are you unable to differentiate between an anti-war and a pro-war opinion?
Yeah, I very often am, yes, as it would influence a voter. I certainly am.
I'm not discussing the influence on a voter.
Well, I think you are in the book, according to the book.
I am discussing only what is on the air.
Yes, but you were suggesting in the first few pages of your book that this is important
to the nation because network television is influencing the voter.
Andy, that's the conclusion of the whole study. You said that you could not tell how I could
differentiate between a pro-war and an anti-war opinion.
Well, I think it gets very...
Now, if you can't, I'm sorry, but I can and I think most Americans can.
Why don't you give us an example, Ms. Rudy?
If you can't tell the difference between tower and full-bright, then I'm helpless.
Before you think that it's her bias, that it's her bias that actually gets in the way.
She will take a paragraph from, say, a Cronkite statement or a Sebride statement or a John
Chancellor statement or a report from someone in the field.
And she will count the words. Now, this is a word count. Presumably, the articles count
the same as the verbs if it's pro. In other words, this is a quantitative measurement.
She has charts saying this many words against anti-Nixon, this many anti-Humphrey, this many
pro. And all the words in the paragraph presumably are the same. Now, I just happened to recall
one of her...I would like to have you...if you think it's so easy, I would like to have
you tell me this. There was a statement...one of your synthesized paragraphs.
Andy, before you give me an example, could I ask you one question?
No, I wish you wouldn't.
All right.
Okay.
Many demonstrators heckle Wallace with cheers. Would you break down those words pro and con,
Wallace? Six words. Hippie, pro or con, Wallace?
Would you like my answer?
Yes.
I'm surprised you don't break it down to letters and ask me how I might break it down to letters.
You broke it down into words. Did you not break it into words?
I waited patiently and now I'm answering.
You broke it into words.
I broke it down into concepts, ideas.
No, I have the words here. You have...
Just a moment. I...if today, right now, I was using my technique on our conversation,
I would count all of your words as anti-my position.
My chart would only be this big and yours would be...
Hold on. That's because I was asked the first question. Afterwards you will have loads of
time to make speeches too. My point about the method is up until now, every word you
have uttered has either directly communicated or has been a means of communicating your
view that my book is inaccurate. I would consequently count every word out of your mouth as anti-news
twisters and this is...I would count the letters, I'd count the periods. It doesn't matter.
Would you do that one for me before we go on? Hippie, demonstrators, heckle Wallace with
cheers. Six words.
That was a summary.
Yes, but I mean...
That was a summary. How many words was it?
Yes, but you are able to determine which are pro and which are...
Which column would you put them in?
Which would you put Hippie in?
That's an example where you'd have to pull it out...
Is that pro or con Wallace?
Just a minute. You were talking about a particular story that I happen to recall and perhaps
those in the audience will recall it also. There was a group of students who were called
hippies by the reporter who decided that it would be a very good way to unnerve Wallace
by cheering every time he denounced anarchists instead of booing. They reversed their tactics,
it was very amusing, everybody in the nation laughed. It was stated in the stories that
they were anti-Wallace. The story made it absolutely clear that they were anti-Wallace
and it was an anti-Wallace at first.
That's incredible.
Engagingly done, but it was an anti-Wallace protest.
You were engaging. This book, it is the greatest I have here in my hand demonstration I have
ever seen. You have nothing in your hand and I hope the whole country for your sake and
everyone's reads this whole book because if they don't read it, they're going to think
there's something to it and there's nothing to it. I find it close to a fiasco.
When you have a book of 400 pages that presents a theory of bias...
You know, nine of those pages are a quote from US News and World Report. Now what are
all those magazine pages in there?
You tell the listening audience why those pages from US News and World Report are there,
Andy.
What do they have to do with television news?
You're unwilling to tell them why they're there?
I don't know why they're there.
I will then tell them why they're there because an analysis of bias indicates that liberal
journalism and conservative journalism handle the same stories differently. That there is
an enormously different selective process, that there is a different choice of facts,
that there is a different choice of stress. And the US News and World Report, which Andy
is trying to make it sound as if I've stuffed the book with conservative material, is there
as an example of conservative bias. That is what he was not willing to say.
No, I didn't understand how it bore on television coverage.
The principle is news coverage and selectivity.
And if a radical puts out ramparts, his selective process, his stresses, will be enormously
different from Mr. Buckley's in National Review. And if you have read Ramparts and National
Review, you will know this. And my whole principle of how you identify political bias is by studying
the selective patterns. And that will give you the broad guiding principles that would
account for the differences in Rampart's National Review or the liberal times in the conservative
Chicago Tribune.
Can I ask you a couple of questions, Mr. Frasier? I take it you don't deny that the techniques
exist by which one person can be subtly disparaged and the other person subtly appraised, do
you?
No, I do not deny that.
Now, for instance, Time Magazine was accused of doing exactly that in 1952 to the benefit
of Mr. Eisenhower and to the disadvantage of Adlai Stevenson by the discrete use of
a single adjective. A single adjective can actually control, it can be the operative word
in a particular sentence. The word count basis for deciding whether somebody is pro-Nixon
or pro-Humphrey seems to me to be potentially misleading. For instance, to play the kind
of game that Mr. Rooney introduced, three cheers for Mac Bird would not be four-fifths
pro-Lady Bird. However, it's also true that if in the course, let's say, of seven weeks,
which is a perfectly safe statistical period, you tune in on, let's say, Huntley and Brinkley,
and let's say that 4,100 times they use adjectives concerning Mr. Humphrey of a kind that people
in this room would tend to agree were favorable, and only 400 during the same period about
Mr. Nixon having to do with his, let's say, audacity or his friendliness or his openness
or his candor. There are lots of them. Wouldn't you say that this would indicate something?
I'll say yes if I can get in with another sentence.
Sure, go ahead.
I think you would agree that Humphrey is, for everybody, generally speaking, a friendlier
person. Whether this is pro or con or whether he should be our president or not, he is a
friendlier person. He has certain attributes that are quite different from Nixon's, and
if you describe him as being friendly, it's a fact that you can't deny there's no sense
describing Mr. Nixon as friendly if he's not. I mean, hypothetically, I say.
Yeah, sure. You wouldn't say, uh, aquiline-nosed Nixon.
No, right.
On the other hand, the selection of the use of the word friendly, once again, is value
judgment. Well, I certainly don't say this about Mr. Humphrey, but there are some people
who take friendliness done copiously as a slavishness. Or they might say about Mr. Humphrey
that he is loquacious or that he is endless or that kind of thing. Now, what I'm saying
is that, uh, what fascinates me about Miss Effing's book is that she has reason to a
conclusion which I judge to be safe simply from the evidence of one's senses, which actually
could be reached a posteriori. You could take people like Huntley and Brinkley at all, and
know what their own biases are. Now, it's pointed out by Miss Effing, her book, that
while Mr. Goodman, the head of NBC, says there's no such thing as bias, any responsible television
news organization does not make the news at all. It reports the news. And Brinkley says
news is what I say it is. It is something worth knowing by my standards.
And that's a correct definition of news. That is, Brinkley is absolutely correct.
Correct. But then it becomes worthwhile, as he points out, to know what his standards
are. But Miss Effron takes that one statement of
Brinkley's, which I don't agree with, and I doubt if he would agree with it today. He
is making ad-lib statements, and some of which sound as idiotic as some I will make today,
because I'm not... That's a profound statement.
His statement is? Yes.
Well, it may be profound to you, but I doubt if he would repeat it. If he was writing it
down on a sheet of paper and could think it over, I doubt if that's what he'd tell you
it was. And you take that one statement of his, and you go for pages suggesting that
this is everyone's... Okay, you don't like...
Oh, no, I don't think it's everyone's opinion. I think I don't.
Edith Hamilton, or Goodman, said that television is not a political instrument or a social
theory. It is a means of communication. Huntley, not Brinkley, Huntley says news is social
and political criticism. Now, it seems to me that Huntley and Brinkley
are saying something there which acknowledges that the relaying of the news is to a considerable
extent based on value judgments. And this Efron, working not a posteriori, but working
from the beginning, seeks to put together data on the basis of which people can reasonably
agree on that, which is, after all, obvious. May I say something?
Yeah. Thank you. Gentlemen, I sort of object to something
you're both doing, as a matter of fact. He is focusing on word counts, which is a way
of making it sound contentless and mindless and unrealistic. And the example you chose
of a sort of subtle editorialization by adjective or adverb, while it certainly is a technique,
also somewhat reinforces the notion that I took a microscope and hunted for words and
I sat and counted... Excuse me, may I finish?
When I said ideas, I am simply saying that unless one does not understand English or
one does not understand anything about the primitive issues over which people were fighting,
one can differentiate between a pro-war opinion and anti-war opinion. A statement that calls
Nixon a racist wasp who hates Negroes, a statement that says, stop the bombing, stop the bombing,
I want unilateral bombing halt. These are all simple concepts that can be grasped. They
have beginnings, middles, and ends. Simple rules of syntax will tell you where the opinion
starts and where it ends. Then a simple count, admittedly, admittedly, a crude method.
But by this crude method, you get the most extraordinary results. Now, if you can improve
the method, Andy, pray do so. Simply smearing it indicates that you don't desire to solve
the problem. This I have here in my hand, the number of words spoken for and against
Richard Nixon on the three networks, these are column charts. I don't know where I should
show this. These are specific words, 7,493 words spoken for and against. This is the
dark one is against, presumably, and the light one is. So you counted every word. This is
a quantitative measurement. That's correct. The networks use it all the time. They use
time. Then may I come back to my original thing that I found in here and ask you to
break it down the way you've broken this down? To break what down? Hippie demonstrators.
I've given an explanation of that story. Is hippie a pro or con word for Wallace? That
is not the story. That's not where I got the word count. If you can do this, you have this
great knack. No, he's misquoting me. That is a summary statement. Yes, but you have this
knack for knowing which word belongs in which column. I can read English. The reporter said
it was an anti-Wallace protest. Am I to believe you, reporter? If a reporter says that a group
of hippies cheers Wallace, is that pro or anti-Wallace? If the reporter says that it
was an anti-Wallace. Does it not matter who is listening to that? Don't you have more
penetrating criticisms in my book than this? I am really astonished, Andy. The reporter,
it was all over the country. So you know the least penetrating? This was an anti-Wallace
protest in a gag form. You know the least penetrating criticism I have? Maybe you can catch it. What
is that? I noticed here that I don't know whether Bill is going to be able to vote or
not. The next election is November 5th, 1972, which falls on a Sunday of all days. Meaning
it's a typo. Well, or an error in fact. I call it an error in fact. I have never claimed
to be infallible. I would still like to hear. It's a petty error. I would like to know.
And I think the book is filled with them. I would like to know why you deny that a story
covered by three networks as an anti-Wallace protest isn't an anti-Wallace protest. It
just didn't seem to me as though you count every word in that the group. I haven't I
have not got that specific thing. No, you haven't. Well, I don't know the page number.
It would be a ridiculous thing for me to memorize every page of the book. I just happened to
recall that. No, you have to look at my research, which you haven't requested to do. Well, my
dear woman, that's like my father's bigger than your father. And if you don't believe
it, ask him. I mean, you just don't run home and get everybody's room. Let me inform you
something, Andy, which is very relevant to the way we conduct this conversation. When
a study is done and a theory and an analytical methodology in pages and pages is spelled
out in detail for a content methodology better than a method. I often wondered. I know. Well,
right method. I'm not being pretentious. It's just a word that's used. And a person presents
documents and in the book makes it enormously clear that the research is available. There
is full disclosure of this opinion material. I submit that if you really want to challenge
the book, it is intellectually incumbent upon you to challenge the theory, to challenge
the method and to challenge the research. Now, when Professor Paul Weaver of Harvard
was going to write and is going to write an essay on my study for a very distinguished
academic publication known as the public interest, Professor Weaver flew to New York to study
my research. He didn't simply smear. He looked. One of the results I am happy to say is that
the book is being recommended as required reading in a Harvard government media course.
So well, I didn't think it was quite as meaningless as you. Apparently I have been in television
long enough as a writer and not on camera. And I'm, I'm at ease and I'm, as you can see,
I'm nervous and I'm, I'm just distraught about your, your book because I think it's doing
a great deal of damage. I've been around television long enough to know that it's no man ever
got anywhere attacking a woman or being outraged.
Gentlemen, I submit he has lost the debate. If you can descend to that, you are in trouble
Andy. Have a cigarette.
I, but I, I, I, I find your curiosity while it can taint us because I, I, at a certain
point you've got to decide into which of two columns to stick a series of sounds. And I
think there are a number of answers available to you. If any of them have, well, if you
want to break it down, we're almost dealing in phonetics here. You can say X number of
words uttered by Eric Severide one night had zero value content and therefore they don't
go in the Andy Humphrey column or in the pro Humphrey column or the Andy Dexter column
or the pro.
Well in fact she doesn't have a neutral column. It's all part of math.
She might have just thrown it out. She might have just thrown it out.
It was raining today in Milwaukee.
There was lots of neutral stuff or empty stuff on the air.
It was raining today in Milwaukee when Humphrey came in.
Yes, exactly.
Now, you wouldn't.
That's Andy Humphrey.
From the point of view of God, yes, but not from the point of view of the bias.
You wouldn't count that phrase in your total words.
No.
Then how does Mr. Rooney know that your hippie, Wallops thing?
Mr. Rooney is distorting. Mr. Rooney is evading. Mr. Rooney is being dishonest. Sue me. You
are not being responsive to facts.
You can't sue for being dishonest.
I have.
Well, or stupid. I don't know which.
No, no, no, no, no. Let's not feminize this thing.
Well, we're even. We're even.
Well, I'll tell you what.
He attacked me as a woman. I'm impugning his intelligence.
Stupid I'll accept, but.
I'll tell you what. I'll tell you what. Just for fun, let's try to follow your method through
on one of the charges that probably don't divide you and Mr. Rooney. Say the matter
of the new left. Or say the matter of the black. You brought up the black situation.
Now, you say.
Rooney has said that totality is invalid.
No, no, wait, wait.
Everything divides.
Now, you say that you detected bias in what direction involving the black. Did you say
the black panthers or what did you say?
No, what I said in the book is that there is racist bias on the air.
OK. Now, could you give an example of racist bias on the air?
Yes. And for one thing, the coverage is exclusively stereotyped. It is the black, a monolithic
report on the black community, the Negro, the black. It's as if the blacks are one lump
that have certain attributes. This by definition is racist. Now, in addition, at that period
of time of the study, the particular stereotype was most unfortunate. It was all the opinion
material pertained to violence, to arson, to looting, to threats of murder. It was a
criminal stereotype, sort of half hoodlum, half alleged revolutionary or demagogues who
claim to be leaders of these people.
Now, in fact, when you have a stereotype which revolves constantly around violence, constantly
around crime, and you are then presenting this as the black, this is the most tragic,
tragic image of the black which is being projected even though the reporters sobbed gently over
this all the time and distinctly indicated their sympathies.
OK. Now, what do you say to that?
Well, it isn't true. We don't refer to them categorically as the blacks. Matter of fact,
I think some of your complaints is that we gave too much specific time to some of their
heroes. We didn't call Eldridge Cleaver the black.
He was a spokesman of the blacks.
We had a lot of spokesmen. As a matter of fact, it was one of the reasons for the complaints.
So I rejected. It's just not true that we referred to them always as the blacks.
In other words, you were saying that I have fabricated all the documentation and I spent
three years inventing the big lie.
No, I don't think.
With no money yet. So I'm not only lying.
I wouldn't open that up. I wouldn't open that up.
Go ahead.
Why don't you?
Well, I thought I was curious about whether Bill was going to mention. I didn't know whether
this was how we were divided up the three of us here. I didn't know whether for a while
whether Bill was on my side or your side or whether he was neutral here. But I got looking
into the Historical Research Foundation that gave you the four thousand dollars for the
book. And lo and behold, Bill is a it's a.
Which means that it's untrue.
No, but I think he should have said.
If Schlesinger had been on the Foundation.
Please, please. No, I think Bill should have.
I kept it secret except that I published it two years ago in 365 papers.
Are you thinking that you're exposing a secret which is known to everyone?
No, no, no. I just think he should have mentioned it here. I mean.
I'm perfectly willing to mention it. It is not a secret. It has been made public. I got
grant from a foundation. Bill is certainly on the board. What is the implication? That
Bill corrupted me into his attitudes or there's collusion because he paid my typist spills?
No, I simply think that it should have been mentioned that that was true.
You made it sound pretty sexy when you said, well, let's not get into that.
Especially in reference to money.
There's a wonderful word for that.
I did not get any money out of this.
A posse of pieces.
I don't know.
Now you do.
Now, having established that Bill was a member of the Foundation, what do you conclude from
this fact?
Well, I conclude that it's interesting that he has the three of us on and poses as a neutral
observer.
Who thinks Bill Buckley's neutral?
Well, I tell you the truth. A lot of people do.
Oh, come now.
Bill Buckley is one of the leaders of the conservative world.
But he's lovable. Nobody really takes him seriously.
I love him.
Now, wouldn't you gather from that, Ms. Effron, that this tacitly suggests that most conservatives
are not lovable?
Yes, yes, that does. That is the implication of the statement.
That's the kind of thing that you'd have to pick up in the Eric Satterwhite book and
that call over there.
That doesn't part of it.
But if you broke it down, what I said, words pro-Buckley, words anti-Buckley, that would
be a tough thing. Would you put them all in one column?
No, no, because you both paid him a compliment.
I said he was lovable.
And you attacked him, yes. That's right.
I...
Well, hold on. You brought up a very interesting issue. Are you intending to leave the impression
that I've been in cahoots with a conservative foundation?
This is Walter Cronkite this evening. I talked today to an intelligent man who's pro-Nixon.
Bill, you didn't hear his answer. He says he... Mr. Rooney has just said that he does
intend to suggest that I am in cahoots with a conservative foundation. Then you must explain
to me...
What cahoots is? You don't use that word. That's a pejorative word.
Is it your impression that I am a conservative?
Yes, it would be.
I am not a conservative.
Well, you fooled me.
I am not a conservative. What's more, if you read my book, and I somehow don't know whether
you did or not, you will observe that it's a remarkable conservative indeed, who for
the first time in the history of all the New Left protests has validated their charges
of distortion, who is making a tremendous...
But you have not validated them at all. I mean, you are saying again, look at this thick
book and it's nothing. There are some things here that fascinate me.
Then in other words, I pretend to validate the charges of the Left.
Well, I'm not accusing you of fraud. I just think you have done a wrong thing.
Then in other words, the Leftists do not have grounds for complaint. The Blacks do not have
grounds for complaint. The Republicans and the conservatives do not have grounds for
complaint. 57 to 70 percent of the people were utterly and totally cognitively impaired
and the networks alone are objective. Is that what you're saying?
I'm sure you've been in cahoots with him when you used the word cognitively impaired.
I have a beautiful vocabulary.
Now let me try and settle down.
Now why don't you answer that? Is everybody in those groups insane?
What groups?
The groups that have been protesting passionately for 10 years.
What groups are they?
Oh, what groups?
My first story on the subject of nationwide protests against network bias was published
in 1964.
May I say just a few words? The fact is that this is one of the great problems of network
news, any news, any newsman. There is a great preference in the world for not knowing the
truth. You probably know that. People have this overpowering desire to not know the truth.
You're demonstrating it magnificently.
And I just think that when they are faced with the truth, very often they would prefer
to doubt the person who tells them the facts rather than the facts that disagree with what
they already believe.
That's right.
Now-
Killing the messenger who brings the bad news.
My stomach is riled up because I quit CBS News in sort of a huff, as a matter of fact.
But it had nothing to do whatsoever with this. And I just have this- I know a great many
of the people rather intimately. And I would challenge you to tell me anything about Walter
Cronkite's politics. I know Walter well.
Now, wait just a minute. I just believe that there- it is possible for a newsman to go
down the middle of the road no matter what his political bias is. And I believe Walter
Cronkite has gone beyond that. I'm not sure he has a political bias. But please, now wait,
now wait. I just think that it is possible for a newsman to be a professional and to
stay in the middle of what a story is, no matter what his personal opinions are. And
it's hard for a lot of people to believe. But there are professionals, newsmen, whose
only God is the truth. Now, if that sounds corny, I believe it to be true. And I've been
in the news business for a long while. This holy grail, they believe that if all the truth
is revealed to everyone, everything's going to be all right. Now, they may be wrong. But
this is their driving interest, to get all the facts before all the people, and they
have the idiotic belief that then everything will be fine. I don't know whether everything
will be fine or not. But that is a newsman's credo. I believe. I know enough of them to
believe that that's true.
Walter Cronkite himself confessed to being guilty of one of the things Miss Efron charges.
Oh, I'm sure he has on countless occasions.
He said in 1968, he recognizes the failure of CBS News not to have devoted sufficient
footage to the provocations that caused those riots.
I don't know when he said that, but I'm sure he did. This is a constant problem. But what
I'm saying is that any failure in this direction is in execution, not in design. Are you saying
that there's a cabal? Do you think Severide and Cronkite and...
You know I'm not because my book denies it. May I answer your points? You've made several.
First of all, I went through enormous pains not to name a single newsman in the course
of a content analysis. In the research, the individual names are blacked out. I had no
intention or desire to point the finger at any individual man. I was interested in patterns.
I hold network management responsible for the ultimate decisions that are made, and
I was not...
You mean you think they get together? You think General Sarnoff is a left-winger?
You made three points I would like to answer. Number one, Walter Cronkite is a very nice
man. Nothing in my book points the finger at any newsman in particular.
Is that pro or anti Walter Cronkite? Walter Cronkite is a nice man.
It is pro Walter Cronkite.
It doesn't sound pro.
Nice? Isn't a nice word?
No, it's not good enough for what he is.
All right. He's a marvelous man, and I do not point the finger at him or any other individual
in any other way. Now, point two, yes, I absolutely share the view that if all the truth were
known, man may not reach paradise, but he certainly will find a better way to get there.
My objection to bias is precisely on the grounds that where the press offers you a complete
spectrum of opinion from the John Birch American opinion all the way over to the underground
press on the left, on the airwaves you do not have that kind of spectrum and the truth is
not presented and that is precisely why I am fighting this battle.
But you did not pretend to research the spectrum. You only did the three news shows. In other
words, you didn't do any of the other things that the network news divisions do.
That is the major source of political information for the United States. As such, it merits
a study on its own, Andy.
Mr. Wright.
Hi, Ms. Efron. I would like to ask you, are you advocating that the networks have a balanced
news presentation or an objective news presentation and do you see a difference between the two?
If objectivity means truth, and I know no other definition for it, it is a bit much
to ask. I am not asking that. What I am really proposing is two things. I think you are sort
of going to what are the solutions that I propose. But before I answer that, let me
say that I object passionately to having such imbalanced transmission of opinion on controversial
issues by the very people who declare that they are abiding by a fairness doctrine when
the fairness doctrine specifically asks for equal, equally forceful and nonpartisan transmission
of opinion on controversial issues. So that my first protest is against the enormous disparity
between their claims, their practice and what they preach. Then as for conclusions, if we
want to get into that, that is a tremendously big subject. Do you want to get into that
yet?
Hang on a little bit, if we may. Mr. Honig.
Yes, sir. Ms. Efron, if I may. It seems to me that the validity of your book, as apart
from the sales of your book, depends on your methodology. And I am still unclear as to
how your content analysis can be proven valid since you are the only analysis of the content.
You believe in truth by democracy or truth by committee, is that it?
No, but content analysis cannot be done by one person. There is no one, not even a professor
from Harvard, who would say that content analysis can depend on one person's view.
I will be glad to introduce you to a professor from Harvard who thinks it can be. What is
your point? See, I will answer you more broadly in the American notion that one person cannot
establish a truth.
My point is that a number, a count of a number of words is not content analysis.
You would have to read six pages of the methodology.
And in the second place, how do you differentiate a selection of news for news value?
Do you know a methodology? It would take half the program for me to read it. You would have
to read it to analyze it.
Mr. Honig had another question I don't think everybody heard. What was the last question
you had?
Or how do you differentiate what you call a bias of news from what is a selection of
news? If there is an anti-Humphrey demonstration that is run on television, you will put this
in the column under anti-Humphrey, will you not?
Certainly.
But why is that network news bias? Why is that network news bias?
Oh, well then let me explain. The definition of bias that I am using is, in effect, the
fairness doctrine definition. It simply means this, that if a lot of people are, let's say,
anti-Humphrey and a lot of other people are pro-Humphrey, that the network obligation
is to let you, the public, roughly know what the people on both sides say. Now on any given
day if there is an anti-Humphrey demonstration, well fine. Then that is public opinion transmitted
by the network.
But did you go out every day and look at all the demonstrations and see if the news correctly
reported that there were 80 percent against Humphrey and 20 percent against Nixon?
If in fact, if in fact network news reflected the poll type of reality that you are suggesting,
we would be much better off.
But how do you know they don't?
Would you like an example? Their anti-war coverage, for example, was most extraordinary. To give
you the polls, the poll statistics that you want to use as a reference, and I agree with
you, they're the only reference we have. At that particular time in history, the majority
of the country was supporting the government's war policy. One year later, according to the
Harris poll, a clear majority still supported a victory position.
But they supported it in their living rooms, should CBS go into the living room with 70
percent?
Just a moment, may I continue? I am quoting Harris and Gallup, I'm as much at their mercy
as you are. These are the facts that I got from them at this period. Now on the air,
NBC, for example, expressed nobody, that doesn't mean reporters alone, nobody, no politician,
no member of the public, no head of an organization, not one human voice, aired a pro-government
war policy opinion. Now there is an example where you have the most calamitous distortion
of political realities.
What about September 17th? I believe there were three on September 17th.
I'm talking about a seven week period when this was the major campaign issue.
I know September 17th there were three.
Andy, for seven weeks, a major campaign issue, no opinion on the other side for seven weeks.
You have no fact, that's not true, that is not true what you're saying. You are holding
up I have here in my hand again. You have nothing in your hand.
No, I'm not holding up I have here in my hand because I'm publishing it and the research
is made available. If you wish to go through those transcripts.
Where do we come up to your attic? Where do we find those? I happen to have some.
I have some of those, some of those things from which you took your statements, I suppose,
at the time, but I would love to read a couple of minutes of these things and your synthesis
of what they reported to me.
You have one there you think is very vulnerable?
I tell you what, let's get a question from Mr. Dunbar.
Do you have original transcripts there?
I wish he had been up here. I thought he was.
Miss Efron.
I'll buy you a taco.
Overall, I've got to admit that I agree with you on the basis of anecdotal evidence. I
agree with Larry. I believe that your methodology is not tight as it should be.
You don't know what it is.
From what you have described, there's no way that it can be tight.
There's no way I can explain it.
Well, let me make a further point. Let's assume that you're right. Let's assume that the research
is valid and that not only from the gut hunch point of view, but also from the point of
view of statistical significance, there is a bias in network television news. Is this,
do you think, intentional? Is this some kind of an insidious conspiracy or is this something
that just sort of accidentally happens? Is there something in the water system in New
York that makes this occur or what?
First of all, I must make a comment on this issue of methodology. I have never in my life
heard anybody be asked to present a detailed set of principles for a content analysis.
Have you ever read a scientific journal?
No, just a moment.
In those, they're always asked.
On a talk show. No, I present pages and pages of my principles so that anybody who wishes
to challenge may challenge adequately. But on a talk show, I cannot sit here and read
you six pages.
You took the brain quote frankly out of a talk show.
He said it to me. I didn't take it out of a talk show.
Miss Effron, you're basing all of your conclusions on the basis of this research.
Of this analytical method. It is crucial.
You have so far not defined the methodology by which you arrived at these conclusions
to the point where we can tell whether you're making a valid point or not.
That's true.
I think this is what Mr. Rooney is trying to say.
That is, Mr. Rooney has read the methodological principles or he should have. You have not.
I would absolutely agree that you are in no position to know whether I have proved my
case. Mr. Rooney both had the principles and he had two weeks in which to say, may I look
at your research? He did not. And I submit, Andy.
I found the research myself. I looked it up myself. I got the transcripts of the shows
from which you took the...
I see.
Well, Mr. Dunn, don't you think that a study like this, and this actually speaks a little
bit also to the question Mr. Wright, a study of this stands afold on its plausibility if...
You mean face credibility at this point?
No, no.
Does it make sense logically or...
No, I mean to the reader. If a reader is shown the researcher's technique,
and probes his way through the researcher's method, he either ends up having confidence
in him or not.
Correct.
If you find that a statement is put in the anti-Nixon column, which you think is preposterous
to a sign there, that it's an act of paranoia to do so, then you lose confidence in the
researcher.
It goes a little further than that.
But it's impossible to satisfy Mr. Wright's criticisms and say, you've got to have a committee
that says that inflection in Huntley's voice belongs in that column, not that column. There's
a certain artistic...
To adequately do a content analysis on television, this is exactly what you've got to do. You
cannot take a script apart from the visual. You can sit there and go through the old syndrome
about President Nixon is one of the nicest people that I ever saw in my whole life. Isn't
he wonderful?
Exactly.
How do you put this into an open-tenor?
But Bill, I don't deal with things like inflections. I don't go into that.
It's therefore never as complete as in the same sense that a newspaper report cannot
possibly ever exactly communicate the feeling in a room. I myself was a victim of a situation
in which a reporter said that through a particular passage of a talk I was giving, everybody
was smiling. If it had been so, it would have been a terribly macabre thing. This is a description
of the assassination of Mrs. Lutzer. Now, there is no way that you can confute this unless
it happens if there was a television screening. Miss Efron can't possibly give us a package
like this, but this doesn't invalidate what she does do to the extent...
Not necessarily.
That's right. The words often do speak for themselves.
But the point is that content analysis, if it is done properly, to be a scientifically
valid thing on which you can base some kind of logical conclusions, normally follows a
certain set of perhaps stuffy, moth-filled scientific rules, but they've worked for a
lot of years.
That's right.
Larry's point is, and I think it's well taken, that content analysis normally does not depend
on one coder. You take a group of people who agree over a certain period of time that,
yes, this statement is pro-Nixon, this statement is pro-Humphrey. One person cannot validly
do a content analysis.
I don't think that's true.
Even though I agree with your findings, I've got to say that.
You have no right to agree with my findings, you know, then.
It has nothing to do with validity.
You should be in a position that only... I'm sorry, go on.
If on reading you find out that the choices are erratic or capricious, then you can throw
in the wastebasket, but there's no reason to invite 17 people to say, do you believe
that a reference to the long-windedness of Humphrey is Addy Humphrey.
If you're going to do it scientifically, that is exactly the way you want to do it.
I thoroughly dispute that.
So do I.
I trust you do too. I don't see any reason why the judgment of 17 people is more reliable
than the judgment of...
It is invariably worse.
Your figure is 17. I don't know if I would buy the 17, but there is normally in content
analysis a group of people who must agree. This is simply the rule of the ballgame.
You know what, I'm simply putting my analysis out to the world and asking other people whether
they agree.
And who has the authority to repeal it?
I doubt if any of us do. And particularly in a book that is designed for popular consumption
based on pseudo-scientific findings.
Why is it pseudo?
Why do you call it pseudo?
Because you didn't have 17 people agreeing with it?
Yes, exactly.
And that's the democratic view of truth.
You mean to say that would make it un-pseudo of 17 people agreeing with it?
It's not a matter of a democratic code on this kind of thing.
Do you have 17 people decide the qualifications of each of the 17 people?
No, it's less scientific validity as far as the way the rules of the game are played.
Let me ask you a question.
You're going to be drugged by the profession.
If truth is something which is democratically established, let me make this point. If truth
is something which is democratically established, then we never had to have this discussion
at all because the great majority of the country believes that network news is biased. So if
democracy is what you want, we've got it.
That's not about, no, in this context that's a very good point.
I agree with your finding as I say, but what you have done scientifically is in effect
to say, all right, I think that this statement is pro-Nixon. All of these statements are
pro-Nixon. All of those statements are pro-Humphrey. Therefore, I think the country is doing this.
You are expressing a great amount of opinion that is probably well taken and is probably
valid, but I do question the scientific.
If the country, if the whole country, if whatever proportion of the country you say thinks network
television is biased, you will find, I imagine, that it thinks it's biased in exact proportion
to its own personal bias.
That is correct. And nobody, for example, knows better what racism is than a Negro.
And nobody is more sensitive to the fact that conservative views are rarely on the air than
a conservative. The notion that the networks are the ultimate judge in this case is preposterous.
Of course, blacks are sensitive to racism a lot more than whites would be. You mean
they should not be consulted or their view is exclusively selective perception? This
is a fantastically pretentious position to take.
Who do you think should select the news for television?
Are you asking again about my conclusions? I'll be glad to go into them if you are.
I'm asking you, who other than professional newsmen should select the news?
I mean, on our day off, he did.
What?
On our day off, he should do it.
No, no. That is not what I claim in the least. That is not what I claim. I mean, you are
asking for the conclusions of the study. I mean, I believe in absolute First Amendment,
but that incidentally is not what the network advocates.
Let me ask Mr. Rooney, do you believe that the Supreme Court has successfully recognized
what would seem to be conflicting imperatives in the First Amendment and the famous doctrine?
The First Amendment says, don't get in the way of newspapers. Then somebody says, well,
it goes to the newspapers, it ought to go for radio and television. But we have on the
other hand a famous doctrine.
And somehow the statute that took recognition of the famous doctrine got through the Supreme
Court. Should it have in your opinion?
I think it probably should have. I recognize a lot of problems with it and I would not
undertake to answer them.
So you disagree with Dr. Stanton on that point?
Well, I have disagreed with Dr. Stanton.
I'm not asking you to disagree with him on documentaries. I'm asking whether you disagree
with him on the point that the First Amendment applies literally to radio and TV, even as
it does to newspapers.
I would say I probably think it does.
So do I.
Then you don't disagree with me.
In other words.
A doctor's thing.
Now wait a minute. I don't know your position on Dr. Stanton as an individual and I'm not
asking that question.
But the reason I bring this up is because quite recently he took a very public position
on this.
Yes, I understand that.
But if that public position is correct, then nobody has any business asking television
or radio stations whether they're fair. On the other hand, the Congress of the United
States with the concurrence of the Supreme Court has said they must be, quote, fair.
Therefore it becomes an urgent matter to establish criteria by which one judges whether they
are.
I agree with all that. I agree with the intention of Ms. Afron's book.
I believe that television should be watched. We should all be hollering hollering about
it.
It certainly should to our congressman or to know to whoever you holler to.
Yeah, it was supposed to go.
The guy you holler to says go jump in the lake and he is influence television is not
is not television is not immune to criticism.
They're very sensitive to even idiot letters that come in.
They count them and count the words just as Ms. Afron.
Because they are afraid the Congress might act.
Yes, I think I think so. Also, I mean, I don't I don't see why there is an assumption that
television is evil. I think they care whether they're doing a good job or not. They care
whether they're doing presenting the truth. They are desperately trying to do the right
job and know that they're failing miserably on many occasions.
Thank you, Mr. Rooney. Thank you, Ms. Afron. Thank you, Donald and the panel.
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