Networks Let White House Drug Office Check Scripts
If slant deemed right, broadcasters benefit
Marc Lacey with Bill Carter, New York Times
Friday, January 14, 2000
©2000 San Francisco Chronicle
URL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2000/01/1 4/MN78399.DTL
Over the past two years, the White House has reviewed some scripts and advance footage of such television shows as ``ER'' and ``Beverly Hills 90210'' under a little-known financial agreement with the networks that encourages them to include anti-drug messages in the plots of programs.
As part of the arrangement, White House drug policy officials scrutinized in advance more than 100 episodes on all the major networks. If the government signs off on a particular show, the networks receive credit that reduces the number of costly public service announcements they are forced by law to air.
The government officials, in the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, said they made some programming suggestions to the networks. But television executives, who are participating in the effort voluntarily with an eye on the bottom line, insist that they never gave control of the content of their shows to the government.
``NBC has never ceded creative control of any of our programs'' to the drug policy office or any other department of government, said Rosalyn Weinman, executive vice president of content policy for NBC. The other networks issued similar statements.
But various networks and television studio executives said they did look for episodes that might satisfy the interests of the drug office.
The practice surfaced yesterday in a critical report on the Internet magazine Salon that labeled it ``prime-time propaganda.'' Although not widely known, the programming effort had been outlined by Barry McCaffrey, director of the drug policy office, during a congressional hearing last fall.
Andrew Jay Schwartzman, president of the Media Access Project, a public interest law firm, told Salon, ``This is the most craven thing I've ever heard of yet. To turn over content control to the federal government for a modest price is an outrageous abandonment of the First Amendment.''
Under the program, government officials get an advance look at whatever shows the networks want to submit and an opportunity to make the case that anti-drug messages be inserted. Occasionally, the drug policy office might suggest that a scene be changed or a line rewritten to show characters turning down marijuana or ruining their lives through cocaine, said Alan Levitt, an official in the drug policy office who helped create the program. In the vast majority of cases, he said, no suggestions are made at all.
Officials with the drug policy office defended the arrangement as an effective way of spreading anti-drug messages to young people without infringing on the creative process. Drug use among youths has dropped by 15 percent in the last year, said drug policy office leaders, crediting both a government advertising blitz and anti-drug programming.
``I guess we plead guilty to using every lawful means of saving America's children,'' said Bob Weiner, a spokesman for the drug office. ``But we don't interfere in the creative process. We don't say they can't run anything. We don't tell them what to say or not to say.''
LAWMAKER SUPPORTS POLICY
Rep. Jim Kolbe, R-Ariz., whose appropriations subcommittee funds the drug policy office, said he approves. ``I'm not going to be wringing my hands over the fact that we're getting some positive messages out.''
Levitt said all the major networks have participated in the arrangement, saving in excess of $20 million in advertising costs. Although Levitt listed numerous shows that had been reviewed by his office -- from ``ER'' to ``Touched by an Angel'' to the ``Cosby Show'' -- he declined to provide the complete list.
HALF-PRICE GOVERNMENT ADS
Congress in 1997 financed a huge anti-drug advertising campaign that required that media outlets match any advertising time purchased by the federal government with an equal amount of public service time. That mandate essentially gives the drug office and other government agencies the ability to purchase ads at half price.
Under the programming deal worked out by the drug office, networks can reduce the amount of ad time they are required to provide to the government by airing anti-drug shows. The networks can then sell air time that would have gone to the government for half price to regular advertisers for full price.
Every network issued statements saying they have never ceded any control over their content to any governmental office.
Every network but one agreed that they had sent either final drafts of scripts or tapes of completed shows to the advertising agency representing the drug office, seeking credit from the government.
The one exception was the new and smaller network, WB, which conceded that it had submitted scripts in progress from ``Smart Guy'' and ``The Wayans Bros.'' Both shows were doing episodes on the theme of drug use, and both altered their scripts as a result of suggestions by government experts.
Jamie Kellner, chief executive of WB, said the network's motivation was to ``try to find expertise'' that would help make the episodes accurate.
``They're not editing the scripts. They may say something like, `This will only work in the story if the person is truly inebriated.' ''
PRODUCERS UNINFORMED OF POLICY
Like several other producers whose shows were used to help generate network credits, John Tinker, who produced the medical drama ``Chicago Hope,'' never knew his show was being sent to the government. ``I would certainly have liked to know about it,'' he said.
Aides said McCaffrey was traveling and not available for comment yesterday. At a hearing in October before a House appropriations subcommittee, McCaffrey outlined the complicated system of credits.
McCaffrey discussed the complexities of getting the right message across. ``We realize that you cannot `shoehorn' a drug message in a script where it does not belong,'' he testified. ``It must appear organically.'' He added: ``Sometimes only a one-second frown or wave of the hand when someone is offered marijuana is all that is needed.''
Rich Hamilton, an advertising executive who helped create the arrangement, said the program does not force networks to offer anti-drug shows.
``We'd say to a television network: `You're already doing this, and it's great you're doing this,' '' said Hamilton, chief executive for the North America operations of Zenith Media Services in New York. ``And if you're planning, once our paid campaign begins, to continue this, send us the script, and we will not rule out giving you credits for it.''
Until a year ago, Zenith was responsible for media planning and buying for the drug control policy office's paid advertising initiative. Zenith lost the account in January 1999 to Ogilvy & Mather Worldwide in New York, a unit of the WPP Group.
DRUG SCREENING
Some of the network TV shows reviewed in advance by White House drug policy officials:
-- ``ER'' (NBC)
--``Beverly Hills 90210'' (Fox)
--``Chicago Hope'' (CBS)
--``The Drew Carey Show'' (ABC)
--``7th Heaven'' (WB)
--``The Practice'' (ABC)
--``Home Improvement'' (ABC)
--``Sports Night'' (ABC)
--``The Wayans Bros.'' (WB)
--``Cosby'' (CBS)
--``Providence'' (NBC)
--``General Hospital'' (ABC)
Source: Salon
©2000 San Francisco Chronicle Page A1