Should Broadcasters Just Say Yes to Newt’s Speech?

Let the speaker speak the speech, I pray you.

There are reasonable arguments for and against House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) getting a free half-hour of prime time tonight to deliver a speech touting the first 100 days of the new Republican-controlled Congress. Pro or con, though, here he comes.

Well, why not? Gingrich is this year’s 400-pound silverback of national politics, the aggressive point man for the GOP’s oft-debated, potentially cataclysmic “Contract With America” that much of the public appears to support. Things are ever orbiting around Gingrich. And whatever comes off his tongue tonight, and however trippingly, will it be any less pertinent than what his speech is preempting? In most time zones on CBS, it’s “Burke’s Law” (although here, where the speech will air at 5 p.m., it’s KCBS-TV Channel 2’s “Action News”).

Still, you’d feel a lot better knowing that the networking of Newt was an equal opportunity freebie. You have to wonder, for example, if Democrat Tip O’Neill would have been accorded the same free exposure had he asked for it to address the nation on a topic of his party’s choosing when he was speaker during the presidencies of Republicans Ronald Reagan and George Bush. There’s no evidence that he ever asked the networks. Maybe all he had to do was ask. Like, sure, Tip, will a half-hour at 3 a.m. fit your schedule?

Gingrich requested time from ABC, CBS, NBC and CNN. As of this writing, he’s received affirmative responses only from CNN and CBS, the latter featuring his speech as part of “an hour news special” that will also include a Democratic response, followed by Gingrich being interviewed by Connie Chung. Will she ask him if he called the First Lady the “B” word? In any event, CBS has already given the hour a title: “The First 100 Days.”

On the other hand, ABC told Newt no. (Who needs him when you’re No. 1 in news and prime-time ratings?) NBC also said no, yet indirectly cozied up to the speaker when its sister cable network, CNBC, said yes even without being approached.

Of the other cable networks that weren’t asked for free time by Gingrich, ESPN, MTV, the Weather Channel, the TV Food Network, the Home Shopping Network, Comedy Central and the Cartoon Network are just a few that haven’t been heard from. Well, the day’s still young.

However, C-SPAN volunteered a yes, keeping its standing as Capitol Hill’s network of record. Another unsolicited yes came from PBS along with a big whoosh , reportedly the sound of PBS leadership sucking up to Gingrich and its other congressional critics whose budgetary guillotine is falling on the public network’s federal financing.

Meanwhile, the Network Affiliate Stations Alliance (NASA) told Broadcasting & Cable magazine this week that its membership of 650 non-network- owned affiliates of the three major networks may preempt network programming to carry a pool feed of the speech on their own. If so, this plushy red carpet means either that the conservative-tagged Liberal Media Monolith doesn’t exist or that some of its TV members are abandoning ship the way some males on the sinking Titanic cross-dressed and impersonated females to earn a spot in a lifeboat.

As for possible political motivation, NASA’s urging of its members to independently carry Gingrich’s speech could be seen as rewarding his stated opposition to the proposed removal of the present cap on the number of stations that networks can own themselves (such as KABC, KCBS and KNBC in Los Angeles). NASA supports retaining the cap.

Those opposed to Gingrich getting this gratis airwaves gig say it will set a dangerous precedent, that historically only the President, and at times a rebutting spokesperson for the opposing political party, are accorded this gift, and that extending it to the speaker crosses a line that cannot be recrossed.

Even Presidents don’t always get the free time they want, witness CBS’ refusal to join ABC and NBC in live coverage of a President Clinton press conference in 1993. Yet do this now for Gingrich, the argument goes, and who don’t you do it for?

Then there’s the argument that Gingrich, unless he’s in an exceptionally mellow mood, is likely to use his free half-hour to be smugly partisan and deliver a one-man infomercial for himself and the GOP.

And, of course, the gut personal argument is that Gingrich is just too snotty to deserve free TV time--as if he hadn’t already received it from Larry King and others.

In any case, there is major hand- wringing about this in some circles. The trade magazine Broadcasting & Cable weighed in this week with its “Just say no” to Newt editorial, warning the media against becoming “doormats for his partisan politics.”

Another trade publication, Electronic Media, advanced the elitist argument that networks “have no business granting access to non-national political figures.” Although the Georgia congressman is well-known, Electronic Media editorialized, “his constituency rests in one portion of one state, hardly enough to warrant granting him a national audience. . . .”

Gingrich, leading figure in the political party that is now largely setting the nation’s agenda, is a “non-national” figure merely because he was sent to the House by Georgians? You must win a national election to have national standing? You must be beloved to have national standing? The facts are that Gingrich already has a national audience and a national reputation by virtue of his speakership and the publicity that he has received vis-a-vis the “Contract With America.”

Yet Electronic Media has editorially lauded television coverage of the O.J. Simpson case, coverage in all its bloated excess. So much for news priorities. O.J., yes. N.G., no.

Actually it should be Newt Gingrich, yes--not on every channel, but at least to the extent that viewers everywhere will have the opportunity to tune in to what he has to say and decide for themselves whether he’s genuine or a self-serving demagogue. That’s broadcasting’s “Contract With America.”

* The speech by House Speaker Newt Gingrich will be carried live at 5 p.m. today by CBS (Channel 2), KCET-TV Channel 28 and cable’s CNN, CNBC and C-SPAN. It also will air live on radio stations KNX-AM (1070) and KCRW-FM (89.9).