TOO STIMULATING TO SCREEN
James Bowman is chilled
by an example of American television censorship
Washington 'IT'S NOT so much that I write well — I just don't write badly very often, and that passes for good on television.' If that strikes you as a marvellously witty thing to say, you can join the millions of Americans for whom Andy Rooney is beloved humourist and folk philosopher, a sort of Will Rogers de nos fours. Rooney does his stuff for 60 Minutes, CBS's 'magazine format' news show which regularly gets bigger audiences than the best that the American entertainment industry has to offer. or he did until three weeks ago when he was suspended for committing a series of offences against political decency.
In a CBS special devoted entirely to his folksy wisdom, Rooney said, `Many of the ills which kill us are self-induced. Too much alcohol, too much food, drugs, homosexual unions, cigarettes. They're all known to lead quite often to premature death.' St vItich one from that catalogue drew down upon his head the wrath of the media culture. Right. But it wasn't so bad until he attempted to apologise. In a letter to a gay newspaper called The Advocate, he tried to explain what he thought about sodomy: 'Is it ethically or morally wrong and abnormal behaviour? It seems so to
me, but I can't say why, and if a person can't say what he thinks, he probably doesn't have a thought, so I'll settle for thinking it's merely bad taste.'
According to a report in the Wall Street Journal, Rooney bowed to pressure from the president of CBS News, Mr David Burke, not to send the letter; but it was leaked and Burke blamed Rooney for sending it over his objection. More serious- ly, the Advocate published, together with the letter, a telephone interview with Rooney in which he was reported as having said, 'I've believed all along that most people are born with equal intelligence, but blacks have watered down their genes because the less intelligent ones are the ones that have the most children. They drop out of school early, do drugs and get pregnant. Is it likely that Rooney would have opened his mind on such a matter to such a man as Mr Chris Bull of ,the gay Advocate? You be the judge. Roney says he didn't say it, or even think it, Bull says he did, though he didn't make a tape of the interview.
Bull's word was enough for Burke, who thundered, 'CBS News cannot tolerate such remarks or anything that approxi- mates such comments, since they in no way
reflect the views of this organisation.' A nice fudge, that `approximates'. We are dealing here with a network executive's conception of logic — which is that the imputation of scandal to any significant portion of one's market share is approx- imately as bad as actual scandal would have been. Rooney was suspended for 90 days without pay —90 days' pay being, for him, something in the region of $200,000.
At the time, the New York Times praised Burke's action as moderate and sensible, but it turned out that the suspen- sion was even more controversial than Rooney's faux pas. By the end of last week, CBS had received 5,133 telephone calls and 1,800 letters, 90 per cent of which supported Rooney — many, no doubt, in the belief that he had indeed cast asper- sions on the watered genes of black people. Worse still, 60 Minutes had slipped from fifth to eleventh place in the ratings and ABC was moving its new hit, America's Funniest Home Videos, opposite the show to take advantage of its unexpected weak- ness. Now there have been further talks with Rooney and his agent and it is widely expected that he will be back on 60 Minutes well before the expiry of the 90 days — perhaps as early as this week if he's back from Hollywood, where some say he has gone to negotiate a better deal with some- body else.
Well, that's the American media circus. But what is really chilling is when a man of judgment and intelligence weighs in to support Burke. 'Television is too large a social force to be stained with any intima- tion of prejudice,' writes the critic, Walter Goodman, in The New York Times.
It is not some debating society or journal of opinion in which all manner of views are welcome and irreverent opinions, smartly expressed, are the most welcome of all. American television has taken on or had imposed on it the social duty to mollify, not inflame, to reconcile, not divide, to narrow differences, not widen them. The effect is not intellectually stimulating; it is soothing . . . Call that censorship if you like; Amer- ican television lives by that sort of censorship and so makes a considerable contribution to the country.
Is Big Brother already here? Or is it just delicious fun that the intelligentsia should applaud the removal from television of the least stimulating intellect currently on pub- lic display — for being too stimulating'? I don't know. But 15 years ago, in England, Sir Keith Joseph was pilloried for saying something similar to what Rooney says he didn't say today. lie didn't lose his job, but the incident is thought to have prevented him from becoming prime minister. Now Andy Rooney has had to learn that Amer- ican television 'personalities' are expected to wield something beyond even prime ministerial responsibility. That's show business.
'Arnold Mack's residence, the booze talking.'
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