Bogeyman No. 2: Bring the cameras onto the floor and the air will be filled with never-ending speeches designed for the folks back home. Nothing will be accomplished.

House Appropriations Committee Chairman Marshall Harris says experience with television is the best cure.

Summary: Harris says that during the first few days of the 1973 session, cameras were very obvious. The house quickly reverted to its regular routine, he adds. Grandstanders are subject to ribbing from their colleagues, and quickly get back to business.

Another bogeyman: The citizen cannot understand the legislative process. Don't let him see it. It will confuse him more than it will enlighten him. The survey conducted for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting has already been cited. And Representative Harris suggests that, indeed, the opposite may be true.

Summary: Harris says that, as chairman of the appropriations committee, he's had little previous input from the average citizen. Last year, however, there was a dramatic shift. Harris says he received a number of letters-thoughtful letters-from citizens. People watch, Harris says, and they do understand.

While all this may be true, says another bogeyman, the mere presence of television cameras on the floor of a legislative chamber is disruptive. Members can't be themselves, they're constantly aware of the cameras. They can't keep their minds on their business.

Senator Robert Graham, chairman of the education committee, and Representative Donald Tucker, speaker-designate of the 1975 and 1976 sessions of the Florida House, dispute that view.

Summary: Graham and Tucker agree the coverage is not disruptive. Tucker says it makes members more attentive to the business of the house.

A corollary of this bogeyman is the argument that sensitive subjects are difficult to take up before a watching constituency. You are watching house debate on one of the most controversial bills to come before the 1973 session-a measure restructuring criminal penalties for sex offenses the so-called sodomy bill.

And the final bogeyman-one that troubled many people in Florida: Can such coverage become nothing more than political propoganda?

The Tallahassee Democrat, in a lead editorial prior to the 1973 session, warned of that very possibility.

But after the session, the paper praised the objectivity and fairness of the programing. Objectivity was never a problem during the 1973 coverage. The reason: What was said was said by the legislators themselves. The legislative project staff saw themselves not as editorial writers, not as commentators, but as communicators, bringing the floor action into the viewer's living room and speaking only to explain what had happened, and how.

The Corporation for Public Broadcasting research on TV coverage of the legislature bears out the contention that this approach works. Seventy-nine percent of the viewers questioned detected no bias in the coverage. Seventy-two percent of the capitol press corps agreed. And most surprising of all-the subjects of all this coverage-the legislators themselves-agreed there was no bias. Sixty-six percent-twothirds of the membership of both houses said the producers had been

fair and balanced in their coverage. Only 6 percent saw bias in the editors' judgment.

Clearly, the political propaganda bogeyman is the most fallacious of them all.

Yes, TV coverage favors the incumbent-but under this eyewitness coverage concept it only favors the competent incumbent.

A decade ago, at a time when the citizens of our city had a massive distrust of the institutions of government, a public television station decided to bring those institutions into the home-to allow taxpayers, citizens, those whose government this was, to take the thing they'd created and examine it.

In Florida, that idea is no longer an experiment. It's the way government works-and the people love it.

[End of video-tape presentation.]

Mr. REBMAN. That ends our tape presentation and we would point out that we have submitted our research to the committee to substantiate our contentions in the tape.

[See Le Roy study appearing in the Appendix on p. 645.]

Mr. REBMAN. In conclusion, we would like to observe that the people are mad at the Congress and mad at television. They are sick of oneway communication with documentaries giving a producer's thoughts of news on the hour, giving 5-minute capsules on such things as war, inflation, and energy-of editorials and 30-second analysis of congressional action in the newspapers via Kiwanis and Rotary speeches.

Understand, we are not knocking the present news system in America, but the great job being done on news probably contributes to the public frustration we describe. The present system is just one bite of the sandwich. The public wants the whole story and they want it direct, so that they can judge and participate. They know that the television industry and Congress can give them what they want, and they resent both TV and Congress for not doing it. Look at the CPBFord Foundation research for what the people think of WJCT. We rival the movie idols in popularity.

Finally, we believe this distinguished committee should call as a witness the president of the National Football League's Referee Association. For years, at least half the Nation believed football referees. to be less than totally honest and frequently incompetent. Then along came TV, complete with instant replay from eight different angles. Suddenly the poor referee got a 200-million-member fan club, holding him now to be one hell of a hard-working, well-educated guy, with an uncanny knack for making correct decisions under the worst possible circumstances. Thank you.

I was surprised how quickly members of the senate just forgot and ignored the fact the cameras were there.

I saw no evidence during the full 2 months we were in session that the actions on the floor were affected by the presence of the cameras. Chairman METCALF. You did not find the speeches became very, very long, or very, very short?

Mr. REBMAN. I found no difference on the floor, or in the length or shortness of speeches and emotional content this year as compared to the other years. I have been in the legislature.

I do not think it slowed down things at all. I think the presence there became almost commonplace, and it is something that we became familiar with, we're not concerned about.

It did not really interfere one way or the other with the legislative process.

Chairman METCALF. Thank you very much, Mr. Rebman.

Mr. REBMAN. We would like to point out, Mr. Chairman, that I do have a prepared statement in addition to the tape presentation, and I would like to submit that at this time.

Chairman METCALF. It will be incorporated at this point.

Mr. REBMAN. There is one further thought I have, and that is we would like to suggest to the committee that for the sake of some of your good colleagues, you might add as your witness the president of the National Football League Referee Association, who for years-at least, the Nation believed football referees were incompetent, and along came television, and suddenly the poor referees got a 200-millionmember fan club, holding many now to be one heck of a hard-working, well-educated group which make decisions under the worst possible circumstances.

Chairman METCALF. We are told, however, that one of the Monday football announcers, Mr. Howard Cosell, is taking direct aim at the Senate of the United States. I do not know whether his activities on Monday night football are going to help him or hurt him.

Representative DELLENBACK. Mr. Chairman, did you notice, with reference to the man you just saluted, there was a report recently about comparison of name familiarity with public trust?

Chairman METCALF. Yes, I thought that was a very interesting discussion.

We are honored to have you, Representative Birchfield. Do you wish to add to an already splendid presentation?

HON. WILLIAM O. BIRCHFIELD, STATE REPRESENTATIVE OF THE STATE OF FLORIDA

William Birchfield, 38, is chairman of the House Committee on Insurance of the Florida State Legislature. A practicing attorney in Jacksonville, he has been instrumental in securing state appropriations for coverage of the Florida legislature by public television. A graduate of the University of Florida with a bachelor's degree in agricultural sciences, he was first elected to the Florida House of Representatives in 1970.

Mr. BIRCHFIELD. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I do not have any original thoughts. I am sure after what you have already heard that there is little I could add, but I would like to give you some perspective, or to give you some idea, some of the things that occurred in Florida, which may or may not be helpful to your consideration of the subject. We meet annually for 60 consecutive days, and in the interim, we have meetings regularly scheduled on about a monthly basis, for about a 4-day period.

During our 60-day session, all of our meetings, committee meetings, have been opened to the press, and that includes television, and they have, of course, come and go when they chose, and they have shown that is what they wanted to do.

Starting last year, that would have been my third year in the legislature, 2 years without it, and 1 year with it, so we began gavel-togavel coverage by public television of the actual floor sessions, and public television does not have enough cameras to take on all of our committee meetings at one time, so there is some hunt and peck involved, and of course, we chairmen sometimes will disagree with who has the most sex appeal, but I do not think any of us can quarrel in retrospect with the areas they have chosen to take.

I do not think that we have had any big disruption in the house. We have two cameras-one by the speaker's podium, one in the rear of the chamber-and, of course, our body is substantially smaller than your House. We are 120 members. We would be about comparable in size to your Senate in terms of logistics.

We have had several rule changes, I think, that have come about as a result of this, although in terms of streamlining our procedures, this has been done several years ago with government in sunshine, but fulltime television coverage has brought on some different wages, and really, I do not know if there is so much good government as good manners and good decorum.

For instance, until we got public television full time, we took sandwiches to the floor of the house, read newspapers, this kind of thing, and that has suddenly come to a stop, and everyone's desk is clean and that at least he looks presentable, so this type of thing will evolve, whether you enact it in the form of a rule or not, it just happens. We are going to see a number of changes in the way we operate. There is consideration whether we should have a night session so that the public can see us live.

As it is now, our sessions are recapped at the end of a day in about 112-hour segments, and shown on our station in Jacksonville, about 10:30, so that is one of the things that may come out of it.

Chairman METCALF. Representative Birchfield, will you yield to me for just a minute?

Every time you see somebody hand me one of these yellow slips, it means that I am on my way over to the Senate to vote.

I want to announce that the hearing scheduled for next Tuesday on March 12 will be postponed until Wednesday, March 20, at 10 a.m. The hearing will be in the House Office Building. If my colleagues will defer to me just for a moment more, I want to express my gratitude to National Public Radio, which is again broadcasting the hearings, and which has used these hearings to demonstrate some of the possibilities of radio broadcast coverage of Congress.

We talked so much about television today, but certainly a medium which is splendid for covering committee hearings is radio. I am delighted that NPR is here.

I will be unable to come back, because I am told there will be another vote for final passage of the minimum wage bill in just a few minutes. I thank you for coming. I congratulate you for a splendid presentation, and now I turn the hearing over to my experienced and devoted colleague, Congressman Cleveland, who twice has presided over the Joint Committee. He is in charge.

Representative DELLENBACK. I thought my great day was coming.

Chairman METCALF. I thought Congressman Dellenback was going to set another precedent. But here again the seniority tradition has worked against him.

Mr. BIRCHFIELD. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I foresee several other things happening, for instance in the committee on insurance which I chaired this past session, we asked a full commission to bring in and investigate a series, and our public broadcasting people made available to use the equipment, so we were able to benefit from something that was already prepared by the medium. I foresee a possibility of instant replay on the floor of the house, where you have a particularly good committee report, a portion which might well be televised, and you are limited by your imagination as to how this type of thing can be used, and I do not know what the answers to these questions are, but I do see some of them coming.

One idea that I think we may well consider on a statewide basis involves the way we handle our delegation meetings in Jacksonville, where we have 14 members in our delegation, 3 senators and on several occasions prior to this session, public broadcasting making the studio available to us, to all of our delegation meetings, at which time we will have the proposition where the person can call in and, on legislation, or particular problems, and so there is some thought being given to have at least on an experimental basis some of our committee meetings of the State legislature on the statewide hookup with educational television, and ask for the same type of response.

Let me address myself to two other points, and I will hush.

We have wrestled with controls and we came out clearly in favor of letting public broadcasting do their own work. We did have a problem in choreography, because part of the way we funded this thing was through our department of education, and there was a little bit. of jealousy as to how the moneys would be spent, and I think we made the message very clear to the department, that the coverage of public broadcasting would be the controlling factor.

For our costs, we are going to spend this year $355,000 to cover a 50-day session and interim committee meetings, and in addition to that, we have added $1 million to the general revenue appropriation to fund some additional equipment which, and I am sure there will be some other needs as we go along, but I believe our legislature is at this point convinced that is a worthwhile expenditure, and we control it under a joint management committee, which I gather has a very similar type of jurisdiction, as you would here, and so we funnel the operational money to public broadcasting that way, and that clearly keeps the department of education out of it, but we have worked out a détente as it relates to the use of the equipment during the period of time.

Mr. Rebman can correct me if I messed it up.
Mr. REBMAN. Not at all.

We are pleased to know the Japanese broadcasters came to see us several years ago looking toward the beginning of covering their national government, and now they are back looking toward the other dimensions we have added in that time, and we find that kind of exciting experience, working with them, and hearing their ideas of how their national assembly, comparable to our country, almost has taken us one better in the ideas we presented several years ago, and they too