April 3, 1973
Page 10648
MAJORITY LEADER THOMAS P. O'NEILL, JR., CRITICIZES NETWORKS FOR FAILING TO GRANT EQUAL TIME TO THE DEMOCRATIC CONGRESSIONAL LEADERSHIP
(Mr. O'NEILL asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 minute, to revise and extend his remarks and include extraneous matter.)
Mr. O'NEILL. Mr. Speaker, last night Senator MUSKIE delivered a response to the President's nationwide television address. Senator MUSKIE had been chosen to make the reply in behalf of the Democratic majority of both Houses of Congress.
Unfortunately, the Nation's three major television networks refused to grant equal time. There was no live television broadcast of the address.
I do not know whether the decision was merely poor judgment by the networks, or whether the networks were intimidated by the President's power to regulate the uses of the air waves.
In whatever event, the networks defaulted on their responsibility to the public. President Nixon had free access to an audience of as many as 100 million Americans. He used his free television time to make a partisan appeal for votes in the Congress to uphold his current and projected vetoes of legislation.
The President has made it his practice to use the air waves to promote his own policies. The Democratic majority in Congress has a right to equal time to present its alternatives to those policies. And the networks have a clear responsibility to transmit both sides of this debate on national policy matters to the citizens that all of us serve.
The television networks cannot be permitted – deliberately or by default – to become allied exclusively with administration policies.