White House says nothing sinister in review of TV scripts
By Marc Sklar/CNN
January 14, 2000
Web posted at: 3:47 p.m. EST (2047 GMT)
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- White House officials said Friday there is nothing
sinister in their review of television program scripts for anti-drug
messages.
"There is no element of censorship here," said White House Press Secretary
Joe Lockhart.
In fact, said Robert Weiner, spokesman for the White House National Office
of Drug Control Policy, the law requires the office to look at programs the
networks ask it to examine.
Under a $200 million government anti-drug ad campaign, networks that
accept the government-paid ads must also run matching anti-drug messages. They
can be in the form of public service announcements (PSAs) or "in-kind" efforts.
Such efforts have included programming with anti-drug themes, according to an
article Thursday in the on-line magazine, Salon.
Weiner said networks have matched the $200 million the government has
spent with PSAs and programming valued at about $212 million. Of that amount,
Weiner said, credit for 13 percent to 14 percent of the time, worth $27.5
million to $29.7 million, has been given to the networks for programs that
contained anti-drug themes. The remaining amount was covered by ad time that
the networks allocated to PSAs that contained anti-drug messages.
In congressional testimony last fall, Drug Policy Director Barry
McCaffrey called the ability of networks to swap anti-drug messages in programs
for advertisements "a foundation of our [anti-drug] strategy."
Weiner said the White House is not allowed, and would not ask for, prior
approval of scripts for television programs. However, when program writers ask
the Drug Policy Office for information about drugs or anti-drug themes, the
office helps out, Weiner said.
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