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The Medium Versus the Message: The Issue of Access to TV News

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2022

Richard A. Pride
Richard A. Pride*
Affiliation:
Vanderbilt University
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Extract

The decade of the 1960's was a tumultuous period for the American polity, and thus far the 1970's have been equally so, if for different reasons. During these same years network news programs emerged as America's most used and most trusted source of information about national affairs. Taken together, these news programs have given us a dramatic and interpretive record of our time. Strange as it may seem, until 1968 no one—not even the networks themselves—maintained an archive of television news tapes. While an interested person could have reviewed past editions of newspapers and magazines at a local library, past television newscasts were not available for study until Vanderbilt University acted.

The Vanderbilt Television News Archive has videotaped the three networks' evening news programs off-the-air in Nashville since August, 1968. The archive has also taped other historic public affairs programs, including presidential nominating conventions, the Senate Watergate Hearings, and the Judiciary Committee's impeachment proceedings.

From the beginning Vanderbilt informed the networks that it was archiving this material because the public interest required that it be saved and made available for research.

In December, 1973, CBS brought suit against the university to stop the Vanderbilt effort. A trial may occur in the near future.

Type
Research Article
Information
PS: Political Science & Politics , Volume 9 , Issue 3 , Summer 1976 , pp. 270 - 273
Copyright
Copyright © The American Political Science Association 1976

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References

Author's Note: The author is an Associate Professor of Political Science at Vanderbilt University and has made use of the Television News Archive in his teaching and research on many occasions. The views expressed in this article are his own; he does not speak for Vanderbilt University.

1. NBC and ABC are not parties to the suit and their views are not known. Clearly, however, the outcome of the suit will affect them directly. NBC began to register their evening news program with the Copyright Office in January, 1976.

2. Wall Street Journal, February 20, 1974; and Columbia Journalism Review, May/June, 1974.

3. Editor and Publisher, February 2, 1974.

4. The Tennessean, December 22, 1973.

5. Letter from Mr. Arthur R. Taylor, President, Columbia Broadcasting System, Inc. to Mr. Alexander Heard, Chancellor, Vanderbilt University, February 22, 1974. The letter was made public by CBS, with accompanying press release, at that time.

6. Clement E. Vose, John E. Andrus Professor of Government at Wesleyan University, sought to enlighten CBS President Arthur Taylor on these points in a long letter to the editor of The Wall Street Journal, March 11, 1974.

7. Letter from Chancellor Heard to Arthur Taylor, December 9, 1974.

8. Ibid.

9. The Library of Congress can waive this right.

10. Communication from Dorothy M. Schrader, General Counsel, Copyright Office, July 30, 1975.

11. See Columbia Broadcasting System, Inc. (Plaintiff) v. Vanderbilt University (Defendant), Civil Action No. 7336, U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee: First Motion to Dismiss, Second Motion to Dismiss, and Defendant's Rebuttal Against Reply Brief of Plaintiff to Defendant's Motion to Dismiss or for Summary Judgment.