Mutual System Stops Carrying Reagan Talks

The Mutual Broadcasting System has stopped carrying President Reagan’s five-minute Saturday talks because they are often a rehash of familiar views instead of news, Ron Nessen, a Mutual vice president, said Wednesday.

In a piece on the Washington Post’s opinion page, Nessen said Mutual has also quit broadcasting the designated Democratic “reply” to the President’s address because it “frequently isn’t a reply at all. It’s a statement on an unrelated issue or even a recorded message taped before the President’s remarks.”

Mutual’s policy now is to run excerpts of the statements in its regularly scheduled newscasts, if they contain “real news,” he said.

Nessen, former press secretary to President Gerald R. Ford, also explained the breaking of a 20-hour embargo recently imposed by the White House on a taped statement. In the statement, Reagan accused the House of a “reckless assault” on national defense in a budget bill.

“News is news when it’s made, not when the White House says it may be released to the public,” Nessen said.

In retaliation for breaking the embargo, White House spokesman Larry Speakes threatened to “take punitive action” against a Mutual reporter, Nessen said. He quoted Speakes as saying that the reporter will “have to figure out how to get his news some other way, because he’s not getting it from me.”

KCRW-FM is the only Los Angeles radio station that carries the weekly address. The station’s feed is from National Public Radio and will not be affected by the Mutual decision.