Letter To Editor - New York Newsday

Letter to the Editor New York Newsday 11/7/03 by Ariel Berschadsky, Esq. That CBS is again bowing to political pressure by canceling a controversial television program ["CBS Won't Air 'Reagans,' News, Nov. 5] should hardly come as a surprise. In January 2000, it was disclosed that CBS and several other TV networks were implicated in a scheme to modify scripts in order to make them more acceptable to the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy. In return, the networks were remunerated in the form of reduced air-time donation obligations, pursuant to the National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign. At the height of the controversy, testimony before Congress by Martin D. Franks, senior vice president of CBS Broadcasting, disclosed that scripts for at least four prime-time shows had been changed in order to send a stronger anti-drug message to their unwitting audiences. Political influence successfully applied to the entertainment industry brings us all one step closer to an Orwellian future.