Sam Ervin's All-Stars
KITMAN, MARVIN
On Television SAM ERVIN'S ALL-STARS BY MARVIN KITMAN Judge John J. Sirica's June 12 ruling that the Watergate hearings could continue on television was a landmark decision. Archibald Cox, the...
...And nobody in the current cast is playing the role of Joseph Welch, the kindly old Boston lawyer who stopped the show at the Army-McCarthy hearings...
...So it is not surprising that he is as confused as Archibald Cox...
...Or, during a break in the Senators' questions, a network entertainment analyst might have summarized a soap opera: "In yesterday's episode, while Carta was coming down from a bad LSD trip, David learned that Mrs...
...Above all, they don't want to look like bumps on a log-an antiquated fear about the medium that dates back to the 1950s...
...But I would feel even more strongly than I do about the right of the American people to know what is happening on the network soaps if I didn't have the suspicion that those irate phone calls were coming from the Committee to Reelect the President...
...One of the important changes in this country since the 1950s has been the bending of viewers' minds by a continual bombardment of information...
...But let there be static whenever a potentially prejudicial remark is made by Jeb Magruder or John Dean...
...Sirica decided that the court lacked jurisdiction in this matter...
...Joe McCarthy never went to prison, yet he was done in anyway by TV...
...Everybody recognizes that the primary law of the land today is television, and I'm aghast that anyone could attempt to defy it...
...3...
...This brings up another possibility...
...and (3) the sense of drama...
...Surely, after the Senators have finished with the dregs of their queries, Senator Ervin could throw the phones open to the public...
...He turns out to be only one among equals, treating his seven-man committee as if it were a team of all-stars...
...I have faith that the Great American Jury-the viewing audience-will decide fairly without any extralegal harm coming to those tried electronically...
...I often have the feeling that the committee members are not trying to advance the plot so much as to get camera time...
...Watching the news, for instance, we are not disturbed to see a story about starving children in Bangladesh one second and a commercial for new cheese-flavored dog food the next...
...Here is an instant replay of the most dramatic moment in today's episode...
...Davis was not really Dierdre's mother...
...Judge Sirica could have demonstrated his understanding of the Electronic Age if, with Solomonic wisdom, he had ruled: "Yes, the hearings can go on...
...Couldn't the committee take advantage of our improved technology and play the recordings of the telephone conversations that are being discussed...
...The chief counsel was always doing battle, portraying everything as the white hats against the black hats...
...Once upon a time the law made a man run over hot coals because it was considered the only effective way to arrive at the truth...
...2) his interest...
...Archibald Cox, the special government prosecutor, had asked that the hearings be delayed, or that TV coverage be halted, to prevent interference with any eventual trials...
...The Senators and the Watergate conspirators are certainly no more sacred than the Knicks-Lakers final...
...TV viewers identified with Halley and Welch...
...Cox's appeal showed a misper-ception on his part about what comes first in American society?the Constitution (i.e., a defendant's right to obtain a fair trial), or VHF access...
...They might replay those 30-second spots about how President Nixon is winning the war in Vietnam...
...The committee also seems remiss in making the audience sit through testimony without breaks for commercials...
...The problem would have been less critical if the networks had used some creativity in handling the entertainment blackout-like running bulletins at the bottom of the screen during the hearings to keep us up to date...
...Halley ran that show with flair, while Kefauver served as an eminence sitting on a throne...
...We try new products such as cereals through the medium of television...
...There is no reason to treat TV viewers at home-the jury-as second-class citizens...
...on "let's make a deal," woman dressed as fig tree makes fool of herself, wins $125 in prizes...
...first man: "Goodbye, Lawrence...
...Dash, by contrast, appears to be running a business meeting...
...He seems to think the Constitution is more important than a person's right to watch TV...
...Before the last Senator gets around to clarifying some minor point raised by the third Senator, the average viewer has probably lost: (1) his bearings...
...He immediately went to Dr...
...Of course, the right to watch TV is not specifically mentioned in the Constitution or its amendments...
...Much has been said about wiretapping during the first few weeks of Watergate on TV...
...We shouldn't stand in the way of progress...
...The phone company, for one...
...The television industry's contribution to saving the Republic was seeking a way to stop coverage on all three networks as soon as possible...
...Regrettably, the judge did not rule on another important issue: Shouldn't the Justice Department's investigation be postponed because it is interfering with the Senate inquiry...
...It will never happen," one top network official told me...
...The same can be said of schizophrenics...
...At each session the basic story line is developed seven times...
...Gleason and challenged the osteopath's diagnosis of Clare's condition, leading Nurse Wynnecliffe to secretly telegram George, who in turn phoned Lawrence as he was about to leave for San Diego to ship out with the Merchant Marine...
...The Super Bowl, the World Series, Marcus Welby M.D., As the World Turns-everything important is interrupted for commercials...
...Or he might have recommended a seven-second tape delay...
...Right-thinking Americans should rejoice...
...ABC viewers, for instance, might have been informed: bulletin...
...Perhaps a compromise between Cox and Ervin was possible...
...Of course, some sponsors would not want to have their products associated with the testimony of wiretappers like James McCord...
...Used on all the other talk shows, it is an effective device for striking objeotionable material from the record...
...Criminality is showing its dullest face, and little is being done to make the trial more interesting for the jurors at home...
...One problem with the hearings as entertainment is that Samuel Dash, the chief counsel, is no Rudolph Halley, the star (along with Frank Costello's hands) of the Kefauver hearings...
...Watergate is undermining the system, and everything is being done to antagonize the audience, to turn the hearings into a first-class bore...
...Everybody in official Washington has heard them...
...Unfortunately, the current electronic inquest is being conducted so soberly that one almost suspects the Senators and the networks are fearful of some day having to go before the Nixon Supreme Court and defend their conduct...
...Many viewers find themselves wanting to ask their own questions-like "Are you lying...
...The commercials are too interesting...
...Phone-in shows are very popular, and are one of the more interesting developments in the medium since the Kefauver and Army-McCarthy hearings ended...
...But worrying about citizens' guarantees under the Constitution is an old-fashioned concept of legality...
...second man: "Goodbye, George...
...So far, they can't identify with anyone at the Watergate hearings...
...Welch was a father figure long before Walter Cronkite was ever heard of...
...We try new ideas, like Archie Bunker's...
...It finally announced that, beginning June 6, one network out of three would broadcast the hearings because of viewers' complaints...
...Senator Ervin, the expected star, is a flop...
...The public's right not to know what is going on at the hearings was met by independent stations rerunning escapist programming...
...But I would bet the Republicans, with all that money left over from the 1972 campaign, would buy time to counteract the bad image their party is getting...
...How does the committee expect the people to pay attention to anything on TV for longer than eight minutes at a time...
...Watergate was preempting regular daytime programs...
...I sympathized with the people howling that they couldn't watch Baffle or Gambit in the morning, and Another World or Edge of Night in the afternoon...
...True, Vice President Agnew has questioned the constitutionality of televising the hearings, suggesting that an unmentioned basic right does not supercede explicit rights...
...The public's right to know what is happening on the network daytime shows is equally valid...
...Everything new in the world is floated at us on TV, and then we give our decisions...
...on "the dating game" today bachelor picks sweet girl no...
...analyst: "And now back to the Watergate hearings...
...We have handled ourselves very well on similar occasions in the past...
...Yet he is neither a great constitutional scholar nor an expert on the media...
...Agnew was implying that the Ervin hearings are a trial by television, but what is wrong with that...
...However, Senator Sam Ervin, a wise old man, knows that when they wrote the Constitution the Founding Fathers wanted the American people to be able to watch TV, and the North Carolina Democrat is being widely hailed as a civil libertarian because of his strong stand...
...The day may have come to move trials out of the courtrooms-an archaic arrangement, as suitable to our modern era as litigating in a cave...
Vol. 56 • July 1973 • No. 14
