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into general subject areas. Then perhaps Congressman Brooks and I will join in introducing legislation which will go to the respective committees that have jurisdiction. You have helped us tremendously, you have been frank and forthright, and I think it is an excellent job that CBS has done. Thank you for appearing.

Mr. TAYLOR. It has been a privilege, sir.

Chairman METCALF. Thank you very much.
Mr. TAYLOR. Thank you.

Chairman METCALF. Our next witness today is Elton Rule, president of ABC.

We are glad to have you here. We have the same high regard for your newscasters as those of CBS, and we look forward to your

statement.

ELTON H. RULE, PRESIDENT, ABC

Elton H. Rule, president and chief operating officer of American Broadcasting Companies, Inc. was elected to that position early in 1972 after serving for 3 years as president of the broadcast division of ABC and its television network for 2 years. Prior to 1968, Mr. Rule was vice president and general manager of KABC-TV in Los Angeles and he has served as president of the California Broadcasters Association.

Mr. RULE. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, members of the Joint Committee on Congressional Operations.

Mr. Chairman and members of the Joint Committee on Congressional Operations, my name is Elton H. Rule, I am president of American Broadcasting Companies, Inc.

I thank you for the opportunity to participate in these hearings and to present ABC's views on methods that Congress, as an institution, might employ to improve its capability for communicating with the American people through mass media.

We understand that it is your intention to provide Members of Congress with a body of information and opinion concerning three general questions:

(1) How can the institutional role of Congress be accurately covered by the news media?

(2) How can spokesmen for Congress gain direct access more readily to the broadcast media to present congressional viewpoints on major issues?

(3) What additional facilities, staff and other supporting services, if any, are required to provide Congress with a more adequate institutional capability in the area of mass communications?

With regard to the first general question, we at ABC have two very basic views. We are enthusiastic advocates of freedom of information as the cornerstone of a free society. And we feel that freedom of information is indivisible. There should not be two standards, one for the printed press and another for the electronic media, particularly today when television news is recognized as the single most important source of information on what is happening in government and politics.

Americans today devote more than twice as much time looking at television as they do to reading newspapers and magazines. The Roper Survey has shown that if the public had to choose one medium from among all the media, the one that most people would want is television. And television's preeminence as an informational medium continues to grow. That is true for the numbers of people who

watch, the amount of time that they tune in, television's constant technical improvements and innovations and the increase in news presentations. An estimated average in excess of 40 million people watch regularly scheduled network evening news on television each weekday evening.

Accordingly, we believe that both the House and the Senate should permit their floor debates and major hearings by committees to be open to television and radio coverage, a goal long advocated by ABC News. Networks and local stations should be allowed to exercise their own news judgment as to what debates are of wide enough public interest to be presented, and committees of both the House and the Senate should be authorized to make their own ground rules for such television and radio coverage.

We believe that technical advances over the years have minimized the argument that television may disrupt the orderly procedure of Congress. The galleries of the House and Senate are open to the public without restriction, but with an obviously limited seating capacity. We are confident that we can enormously expand the public audience if given the opportunity to do so, with virtually no more disruption than is currently provided by the galleries.

Look back over the years to some milestones in television history. In 1951, television cameras were allowed to cover the hearings of the Senate Crime Investigations Committee, headed by the late Senator Estes Kefauver of Tennessee. Television viewers were enlightened and fascinated by the parade of witnesses, and the hearings were hailed as a badly needed exposé. The public reaction to the hearings was a contributing factor to the Crime Investigations Committee's subsequent recommendations for a Federal racket squad, new crime laws, stiffer narcotics penalties, and new tax laws. Viewers understood why the committee took these steps. They had seen the reasons for it firsthand.

In 1953, the Senate Subcommittee on Investigations, under the chairmanship of Senator Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin, undertook an investigation of the Signal Corps at Fort Monmouth, N.J., charging that the Army had been lax in its security measures against subversion. The drama and excitement of the televised hearings the following year transfixed the Nation. The decisive vote by which the Senate subsequently censured Senator McCarthy was in all probability related to the reaction of the viewing public who had been watching him in action in the hearings.

In 1968, a portion of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearings concerning the Vietnam war was televised, and who can forget the recent coverage of the Watergate hearings conducted by the Senate Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities.

These examples that come to mind were all experiences that gripped television viewers to the extent that the daily routine of millions of people was changed. But more importantly, millions were informed, were given front row seats and the opportunity to form their own opinions. In this respect, they were participants who better understood how Congress operates. It seems to me that both Houses of the Congress should recognize what almost all of its Members have learned individually during campaigns for public office-television and radio are powerful means of communication that can contribute

more and more to the public interest. As a nation, we have no greater strength than an informed people, and we in broadcasting seek the opportunity of making a greater contribution to that strength. That is why we urge that the House and Senate permit their floor debates and major hearings to be open to television and radio coverage.

With regard to the second general question before you, I would like to present ABC's views on how spokesmen for Congress can gain direct access more readily to the broadcast media to present congressional viewpoints on major issues. We certainly recognize that adequately informing the public on issues of national policy requires giving exposure to the views of Members of Congress who are instrumental in shaping these policies.

We believe that ABC, in its coverage of national issues, has afforded opportunities for the presentation of a wide variety of contrasting views, including those of Members of Congress of both major parties. Crities, from time to time, take us to task for not granting Congress the opportunity to communicate on the same scale as the President, maintaining that these circumstances prevent Congress from fulfilling its coequal role under the Constitution.

The different nature of the executive and legislative branches of the Federal Government poses a real dilemma for a broadcast network. The executive usually speaks with one voice, that of the President. The legislative, by its composition, usually speaks with many voices.

We have dealt with this dilemma by examining Presidential addresses to determine whether our responsibility to inform the public on issues of national policy requires that we give exposure to differing congressional views. The question becomes how frequently a broadcast network should provide the congressional leadership its own forum for presentation of its views, over and above the presentation of representative and contrasting viewpoints on the particular issues in its net work news and other programs. In that determination we are guided in large measure by prior rulings of the Federal Communications Commission and the courts. Under Democratic Presidents, the Republican National Committee asked for the right of response to specific Presidential addresses. Under President Nixon, the Democratic National Committee has sought to establish that right in several instances. In all cases where this question has been presented, the FCC and the courts have ruled in similar circumstances that there is no automatic right of response on a 1-to-1 basis with the President.

Nevertheless, as Leonard H. Goldenson, chairman of our board, indicated in his telegram to congressional leaders on August 17, 1970, and as Everett H. Erlick, ABC senior vice president and general counsel, amplified in his letter to Senator Mansfield on April 24, 1973, ABC shares a concern that the constitutional balance between the executive and legislative branches of the Federal Government be preserved with respect to access to the television medium.

[The material referred to appears in the Appendix on p. 661.] We made a proposal then, and we repeat the same proposal now for your consideration:

(1) ABC would make available 1 hour of prime time to the Congress at the beginning of each session to present a report on the "State of Congress."

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(2) The Senate and the House would permit television coverage of their sessions on a reasonable basis to present to the public coverage debates on critical issues.

(3) ABC would make available 1 hour of prime time at the end of each session of Congress to present a report on the achievements of that session and the continuing important legislative problems.

(4) The offers of time would be made to the leaders of both Houses and ABC would expect that they would work out a mutually agreeable format as well as to select the spokesmen for the majority and minority in both Houses.

We know we are dealing with complex and difficult questions, but we believe this proposal could serve as the basis for an important first step. We would, of course, be willing to discuss any suggestions or modifications of our proposal which you may wish to offer. And please accept our assurance that we will continue to try to make a good faith effort to achieve for our audience a fair and balanced presentation of the major issues confronting this Nation as viewed by the Congress.

With regard to the third general question, as to additional facilities, if any, which may be required to provide Congress with a more adequate institutional capability in the area of mass communications. John Lynch, ABC News Washington Bureau Chief, will be available to answer your specific questions in this area as a member of the panel of Washington Bureau Chiefs scheduled to appear before you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for the opportunity to present this statement. I will be happy to try to answer any questions that you and the members of the Joint Committee may have.

Chairman METCALF. We thank you very much.

While I have this thought on my mind, if the courts are responding to the particular statutes you mentioned, I do not think they are basing their decisions on the first amendment to the Constitution.

Maybe some of our inquiry should be as to whether there should be modification of those specific statutes as far as Congress is concerned.

I hope you will think about it, and maybe you will communicate with us if you think there should be statutory changes. Mr. Taylor suggested that he thought we would be fortunate if Senator Fulbright's bill would pass and expressed the hope we would amend section 315. Maybe there should be some changes and some modifications, and that too is an area in which this committee is interested and concerned.

My point is, it is just not enough to say the FCC did this or the courts did that. They have done these things, interpreting statutes that the Congress has enacted. We can change the statutes, and perhaps we should change some of them.

Mr. RULE. It could be.

Mr. Chairman, I have concluded my statement.

Chairman METCALF. Thank you very much for appearing here, Mr. Rule, as a representative of a great national network.

I am certainly grateful for your statement, which is very helpful. I will have some questions, but I will defer to Vice Chairman Brooks. Representative BROOKS. Mr. Rule, we appreciate your coming down here today, and for your contributions to these hearings, and your

consideration of this matter, and your willingness to have Mr. Lynch with us. Really we know the Washington people a lot more than we know the executive himself, and they do a good job here which is difficult, and I appreciate your awareness of the problem and your willingness to search for an answer.

I appreciate your being down here.

Chairman METCALF. Congressman Cleveland.

Representative CLEVELAND. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I thank Mr. Rule for his statement, and he has certainly responded to our questions, particularly to our first question about the institutional role of the Congress.

Without getting into a debate about it, I do think that you have taken as examples of coverage the McCarthy hearings and the Kefauver hearings, and hearings such as that, and conclude in this respect that the viewers better understood how Congress operates.

I think those particular hearings were the exception, not the rule, as to the general operation of Congress which consists of a great deal of day-to-day work, and which I admit would not be particularly newsworthy. But I still think there are some institutional functions of the body that have not been fully or even partially explained to the viewers.

You have heard my questions of Mr. Taylor, and I do not want to go over the same ground again. Perhaps your technical people will have more to say about it later in the day, but I am a little sorry that the only suggestion you had was to let the cameras in on the Senate and the House floors.

This is something I agree with, but I would be interested to know if your commentators have commented on the fact that the institution, the rules of the institution, did not permit that.

Mr. RULE. Congressman, I am not aware of that, but we will certainly answer that question and have it back to you.

I cannot answer that at the moment. I would have no position against such a thing on our part.

Representative CLEVELAND. I would also like to ask you-you can refine the information later for the record-I wonder if ABC has ever done an in-depth, comprehensive study of a particular piece of legislation.

I know the most dramatic thing is when we pass it on the floor of the House and the Senate, but a good deal goes into it before that, and I wondered if ABC has ever undertaken a study of some piece of legislation as it moves through the different committees and how it is amended, and the difference between a committee and a conference committee action. This is the type of thing, the institutional thing, that we want the public to know about, so they can better understand our role.

You could answer it now if you know the answer, or for the record later, if you would like to get the information.

Mr. RULE. I will get the information. I am not aware whether we have done that indepth or not to the extent that you are discussing. Representative CLEVELAND. You understand the point I am making? Mr. RULE. Yes, I do.

Representative CLEVELAND. The distinction between the individuals and the institution?

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