Why Dawson can't smoke a bowl

The Evil Urge
    By Larry Switzky

On Thurs., Jan. 13, salon.com magazine, protector of truth, righteousness, and the universal right to hyperbole, broke this story: for more than a year now, the federal government has been unfairly influencing what you see on television. The Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP), under the watchful eye of Drug Czar General Barry R. McCaffrey, has been offering to pay the six "major" networks (yes, UPN does count) to alter storylines on popular sitcoms and dramas so that they include anti-drug messages. And they have been raking in the money—from the apogee of "ER" to the, well, pits of "The Wayans Brothers." As taxpayers, we now have to confront the horrible truth: the U.S. government has been spending millions of dollars on propaganda to (gasp!) protect our children and increase public health awareness.

In 1998, Congress appropriated $200 million dollars a year for five years to buy ad time during network programming, during which it could broadcast such consciousness-raising fare as a young, scantily-dressed girl grabbing a frying pan and bashing it against her stove, screaming "This is your brain on heroin!" Never has self-parody been so elegant. But Congress would only earmark the money if networks provided matching funds. In other words, channels had to donate half the time in order to get any money at all.

In 1998, this apparently didn't seem like such a bad deal. Then dot.coms got big, advertising revenues skyrocketed, and suddenly matching funds became a bad investment. Why give Uncle Sam a special deal if nakedcoeds.com will pay you double, especially during big ticket broadcasts like the Super Bowl?

Washington came up with a plan: sell the ad time, but keep the government money by allowing ONDCP experts to look over the scripts, and, occasionally, have a say in the content. This concept is, in fact, nothing new. Networks already receive extra money and special status if they have a certain number of approved "educational television" hours for the kiddies per week. Nevertheless, muckrakers are screaming charges of Big Brotherism. Media watchdogs sense echoes of "payola"—the practice of influencing content with undisclosed money, a practice first made illegal in the 1950s when record companies paid DJs to play specific records.

In truth, some of this is valid. The federal government is a lot like the Yale administration: when there's a suspicion of guilt around it, nine times out of 10, there is usually something going on. ONDCP isn't denying charges, but instead claiming that their "secret" practices were never a secret at all—and that the media is exaggerating the extent of their influence.

All of this clouds the real issues. Is it really that bad a thing to discourage substance abuse? And since much of the propaganda is geared towards youth audiences, does anyone really support children using hard drugs? There's hypocrisy at work here: the same broadcasters who forlornly shake their heads at the AIDS crisis in sub-Saharan Africa can't bear the idea of influencing Little Billy to forego cocaine for a lollipop. Evidently, sex isn't under attack on prime time. I defy you to find a show where half the action isn't concerned with a jizz-filled payoff—yet no one accuses Trojan of payola scandals.

Furthermore, is anyone really being manipulated? As with most of its policy formation (like the failure to legalize marijuana, even though everyone in creation uses it) and meaningless slogans like "Drugs Lie," the ONDCP assumes that we're blithering idiots. Salon.com cites an example of plotline influence in the unwatched WB network show Smart Guy: underage protagonist T.J. hangs out with some losers and drinks, spills beer on a girl he's trying to impress, wakes up with a hangover, lies to his father, and does everything but club baby seals at the South Pole. I would hope, in the age of irony and the Internet, that we can all see past a little cheap melodrama. Anyone who can't probably deserves what he gets. The least that the feds can do is brainwash us with our tax dollars in more effective ways.

The real manipulation, one suspects, takes place at the level of the reporting itself. In Daniel Forbes' salon.com article, arch villain McCaffrey never really has his say— opposing opinions from network cognoscenti are placed at the end of the lengthy story, their statements separated by plenty of suspicious ellipses. FCC and legal consultants are uncertain about a situation on which salon.com has already passed damning judgment. In the article's desire to flatter our ironic consciousness, we're made to feel abreast of a scandal before evaluating whether one really exists.

In a very postmodern way, a story about media manipulation can, more easily than most, become an enactment of media manipulation itself, because it hides behind the convincing veneer of exposé reporting. The unfortunate revelation may be that, in an information age where the "good guys" are far more intelligent and devious than the apparent conspirators, we'll need to be more viligant than ever.

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