Re: Freedom of Speech?

["Aaron [Bishop] Read" <aread@speakeasy.net>]

At 02:19 PM 7/1/2002, Donna Halper wrote:
>Today's edition of NewsBlues (www.newsblues.com) has a short article about 
>a policy manual Viacom/CBS/Infinity distributes.  It may be much ado about 
>nothing, but the editor of NewsBlues was concerned about how seriously 
>this policy is enforced and whether such policies have a chilling effect 
>on freedom of speech, making it difficult for people at the particular 
>stations to speak their mind on issues or make public comments.  I'd be 
>interested in your opinions of this policy and whether it is really 
>standard practice:
>
>from this morning's NewsBlues:
>...Viacom employees have been "asked" to sign a "Business Conduct Statement."
>On page 9, in a section titled "Talking to Members of the News Media," 
>Viacom take a chilling step toward restricting freedom of speech.
>We quote....
>"Unless you have been officially designated as a spokesperson, you may not 
>comment or provide documents or information to members of the news media 
>on matters pertaining to Viacom's business or any other internal matter. 
>This applies to all media contacts, whether on the record, off the record, 
>unattributed, anonymous or background contacts."]

At WBUR (back in 1998-2001) more than once I was told never to talk to 
members of the news media about the goings-on at the station.  However, 
being a news organization ourselves we also knew the tricks that "the 
media" will do to get information sometimes.   For example, there's the 
age-old trick: call the head coach of a major college football 
program.  Ask him to confirm or deny the rumor that the star quarterback is 
going to get cut due to grades (when there's been no such rumor, you're 
just entirely making this up).   Coach replies that you're crazy, there's 
no rumor and no truth to the statement.  Next day, the paper reads "Coach 
denies rumor that star QB is failing in class!"   Factually it's true but 
of course the context is that the coach is covering up something to protect 
his star QB.

Anyways, at WBUR we all knew that if we ever got caught talking to the 
media we'd be drawn and quartered and then fired.   I'm living proof that 
management there carries a grudge against people who speak ill of them 
(personally I didn't think I was THAT nasty).

However, this doesn't mean I happen to agree with the policy per se, but 
there's a certain amount of validity to it, as well.  Most of the rank and 
file usually doesn't know all the reasons management does whatever it does 
- and for good reason (sometimes it's based on salary issues - would you 
want your salary to be known by everyone in the company?).   So Joe 
Employee talking to the media often may be making statements without 
knowing the context.   WBRS nearly got taken off the air by ONE person 
deciding to be offended and firing off a nasty-gram to thousands of 
Brandeis students and administrators.  In the resulting firestorm, fewer 
than a dozen people had heard the offending programming, but thousands 
claimed to be offended by it.  Excuse me?

I can see these gag policies being used, by and large, for bad reasons 
rather than good ones.  But there's still some good reasons to have such 
policies.


____________________________________________
Aaron "Bishop" Read     aread@speakeasy.net
FriedBagels.com Technical Consulting
www.friedbagels.com   AOL-IM: ReadAaron
"I'm weird, but around here it's barely noticeable."