Cheers, Ken Hanly
Free speech has become war casualty Dalton Camp STAR COLUMNIST
One of the reasons I enjoy watching 60 Minutes, the much bemedalled, widely watched public affairs show on CBS, is to hear from Andy Rooney who closes out the show with acerbic wit and wisdom on a variety of subjects that act as counterpoint to the heavy material featured on the other 57 minutes. Rooney's humour has an edge but his joke is generally on mankind, not on anyone in particular.
Light humour is hard to do when there's a war on, as Rooney discovered a fortnight ago when he made light of President George W. Bush's speech to a joint session of the U.S. Congress. The speech, which attracted record TV ratings, drew unanimous praise from the heavyweight media and viewers-at-large. The New York Times thought it Churchillian while others rated it along with Lincoln's Gettysburg Address.
Like all independent social critics and Swiftian satirists, Rooney offered 60 Minutes another opinion. He came on shooting from the lip, producing nearly a line-by-line critique of the speech. When the president guaranteed "no safe harbour" for terrorism in Afghanistan, Rooney pointed out Afghanistan was a landlocked country and there were no harbours. There was more from Rooney; plainly he did not share the New York Times' enthusiasm for Bush's speech.
CBS was deluged by protests from viewers. Rooney received a torrent of hate mail. More serious, sponsors of the network program withdrew their sponsorships, including such advertising heavies as General Motors, Sears and the International House of Pancakes.
A private television station or network can endure just about anything in the course of giving public offence - foul language, mindless violence, soft porn and the ministries of pandering preachers, but the loss of advertising as a result of free speech is serious business.
The next week's 60 Minutes found Rooney clothed in a sackcloth, smothered in ashes and full of apology. He apologized, castigated himself and read selectively from his abusive fan mail. Notably, everyone else in the cast of 60 Minutes, heretofore representing a bastion of a free press, free speech, free comment and other virtues too numerous to mention, all went to ground. If anyone thought Rooney had a right to his opinion, nobody was brave enough to say so.
As for General Motors and the International House of Pancakes and Sears, who exposed the timid and cowardly at CBS and Rooney's slyly reluctant colleagues, everyone else in the news business is now on notice: Don't mess with Bush. The proven fact of the matter is that making light of the president of the United States can be harmful to your commercial health by impacting negatively on your bottom line.
This episode should inspire the Vladimir Putins of this world who have felt wounds to pride from the pricks of a mettlesome media, and have been chastised by American critics for retaliating. But CBS would tell them sucking up is easier than standing on principle.
It must be said, Rooney was not his best. He was not so much a needler as he was cranky and a nitpicker in the bargain. But a man having an off day need not apologize. The president had got under his skin and the prospect of a war can be personally upsetting. I know the feeling.
We all have our bad days. There ought to be an amnesty for Rooney, as well as for Bush, and even for General Motors, which has produced the odd lemon, and I would wager those pious sons out there at those International Pancake Houses have served up the occasional inedible pancake.
But I would have expected better from CBS, which once screwed up enough courage to allow its man, Edward R. Morrow, to take on Senator Joe McCarthy. Presumably, CBS would flinch its duty today.
Free speech and the right to free expression are the solid foundation of a free press and media. Rooney's example is a warning. To support further this sombre reality, there is the previous example of Bill Maher, a man who makes his living being controversial and politically incorrect. Maher has made a career of being a contrarian and entertaining at the same time.
Before Rooney immolated himself trying to lighten up Bush, Maher made the observation that firing a rocket from a submarine on a target a thousand miles or so away did not strike him as a courageous act. He went on to say - pressing his luck - that whatever else could be said about terrorist suicide bombers, one could not call them cowards. This resulted in an explosion of angered outrage, as well as the cancellation of Maher's show by a number of right-thinking, patriotic television and cable executives. It is not certain if Maher's abject apology will be enough to save his show from extinction.
And in our own small world, a columnist writing in my morning paper (national edition) went after our former foreign affairs minister, Lloyd Axworthy, for having the nerve to say that our military role in "America's New War" would compromise "our values as an independent player" in world affairs. My God! Did Lloyd really say that? Maybe he was joking. Still, you can get in more trouble these days trying to entertain than being serious.
As for me, my position on anthrax has never changed. I'm against it and I don't care who knows.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---- Dalton Camp is a political commentator. His column appears on Wednesday and Sunday.