White House Defends Anti-Drug, TV Tie

In Hollywood and in Washington, White House officials Friday mounted an aggressive defense of their efforts to get more anti-drug themes on television, rejecting claims that surfaced earlier this week that their program has amounted to censorship and payola.

Despite the flurry of criticism, officials said they are confident that they can continue to use network programming to get their message out.

Alan Levitt, director of what is formally called the National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign, said “never once that I’m aware of” had a program been submitted in advance and then altered in order to receive credit from the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy.

“What we’re doing is in accordance with the law,” said retired Gen. Barry R. McCaffrey, head of the drug control policy office, in an interview. “I am hyper-sensitive to 1st Amendment rights issues, and I am not going to get involved in influencing program content.”

Meanwhile, anti-drug office Deputy Director Donald Vereen, speaking at a news conference in Pasadena to unveil results of a survey that looked at how the networks depict drug and alcohol use, said the program has been entirely public and never sought to get story lines changed.

The networks all denied that the drug policy office had any influence on creative content or that the process was secretive. As NBC’s Rosalyn Weinman, executive vice president of broadcast content policy and East Coast entertainment, put it: “NBC never ceded content of any of our programming to the [drug control policy office] or any other department of the government. At no time did NBC turn over scripts for approval.”

The other networks issued similar statements, and at this point none intend to walk away from participation in the program, which continues for three more years.

The five-year program was designed as a way to get anti-drug messages to the forefront and not relegated to the wee hours of the morning when public service announcements often air. Under the plan, the government buys prime ad time on a network (or space in a newspaper or on a Web site) for anti-drug messages. In exchange, however, that network, newspaper or Web site must donate public service time equivalent to half of what the government bought.

Because messages within a program are much more effective than 30-second ads, the White House office decided to let media outlets earn credits for incorporating anti-drug messages in their content.

The process of gaining credit works like this: A producer, whether working for the network’s in-house production company or for an outside supplier, develops a story line. If the story is drug-related, the producer or writer or even the network that is planning to air the show may or may not seek technical advice from the ONDCP, just as they seek advice from other organizations on how to portray a disability or safe sex. Once the episode is finished, either in script form or in taped form, it is submitted to the drug control policy office by the network sales department and apparently without the knowledge of the producers, for credit.

Whether the network got credit depended on whether the plot fit into one of the strategic messages in what the White House office calls its “burgundy bible” (for the color of the cover) that lists such concepts as “peer refusal skills” or “parent efficacy” deemed important by the office, Levitt said. Perhaps “a couple dozen” completed shows that were submitted were rejected for not fitting into the office’s plan, he said. The networks received credit for 109 episodes.

Top television producer Dick Wolf termed the controversy a “non-issue”: “If you look at my shows, going from ‘Miami Vice’ to ‘Law & Order,’ you see how we handle [the drug issue]. I’ve never ever had a call from the network asking us to put anything in.”

But many writer-producers felt stung that they had not been told about the program. “I think it’s appalling,” said Gail Berman, president of Regency Television. “It’s inappropriate for the government to participate in this way in the production of television.”

Ira Glasser, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union, said it was laughable to suggest that the White House has been reviewing TV scripts without wanting to influence their content. “They just like to read?

“Basically what this says if that if you want to sell your ad space at full price, you’ve got to give the government the right to look at what you’re saying in your sitcoms and see if they meet the government’s requirements. It’s unconstitutional. There are severe 1st Amendment problems.”

Even more distressing, Glasser said, is the “complicity” shown by the networks in agreeing to the practice. “They’ve betrayed their viewers’ trust and I think ought to be criticized at least as severely as the government.”

But President Clinton voiced his support of the program’s intent: “It’s my understanding that there is nothing mandatory about this, that nobody--there was no attempt to regulate content or tell people what they had to put into it. Of course, I wouldn’t support that. But I think [McCaffrey’s] done a very good job at increasing the sort of public interest component of what young people hear on the media.”

On Capitol Hill, the program got mixed reviews, drawing both praise and condemnation.

“I strongly support anti-drug messages, but this is a very troubling precedent,” said Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Los Angeles). “It is also not what Congress expected when it provided $1 billion in 1997 for anti-drug TV ads.”

John Feehery, spokesman for House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.), said it was “very upsetting that the White House has control over the content of the nation’s television programs.”

But Feehery says he hasn’t heard of any plans for lawmakers to hold hearings on the issue, and Republicans say privately they aren’t likely to pick a fight with the administration over it.

As for other government oversight, Federal Communications Commission spokesman Joy Howell said the agency isn’t currently reviewing the White House’s conduct or its own FCC rules but said “if somebody filed a complaint, we’d look at it.”

Times staff writers Art Pine, Richard Simon, Jube Shiver and Edwin Chen contributed to this story from Washington; Times staff writer Greg Braxton contributed from Los Angeles.