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1、Spiro Theodore Agnew: Television News CoverageI think its obvious from the cameras here that I didnt come to discuss the ban on cyclamates or DDT. I have a subject which I think if of great importance to the American people. Tonight I want to discuss the importance of the television news medium to t
2、he American people. No nation depends more on the intelligent judgment of its citizens. No medium has a more profound influence over public opinion. Nowhere in our system are there fewer checks on vast power. So, nowhere should there be more conscientious responsibility exercised than by the news me
3、dia. The question is, Are we demanding enough of our television news presentations? And are the men of this medium demanding enough of themselves?Monday night a week ago, President Nixon delivered the most important address of his Administration, one of the most important of our decade. His subject
4、was Vietnam. My hope, as his at that time, was to rally the American people to see the conflict through to a lasting and just peace in the Pacific. For 32 minutes, he reasoned with a nation that has suffered almost a third of a million casualties in the longest war in its history.When the President
5、completed his address - an address, incidentally, that he spent weeks in the preparation of - his words and policies were subjected to instant analysis and querulous criticism. The audience of 70 million Americans gathered to hear the President of the United States was inherited by a small band of n
6、etwork commentators and self-appointed analysts, the majority of whom expressed in one way or another their hostility to what he had to say.It was obvious that their minds were made up in advance. Those who recall the fumbling and groping that followed President Johnsons dramatic disclosure of his i
7、ntention not to seek another term have seen these men in a genuine state of nonpreparedness. This was not it.One commentator twice contradicted the Presidents statement about the exchange of correspondence with Ho Chi Minh. Another challenged the Presidents abilities as a politician. A third asserte
8、d that the President was following a Pentagon line. Others, by the expressions on their faces, the tone of their questions, and the sarcasm of their responses, made clear their sharp disapproval.To guarantee in advance that the Presidents plea for national unity would be challenged, one network trot
9、ted out Averell Harriman for the occasion. Throughout the Presidents address, he waited in the wings. When the President concluded, Mr. Harriman recited perfectly. He attacked the Thieu Government as unrepresentative; he criticized the Presidents speech for various deficiencies; he twice issued a ca
10、ll to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to debate Vietnam once again; he stated his belief that the Vietcong or North Vietnamese did not really want military take-over of South Vietnam; and he told a little anecdote about a “very, very responsible” fellow he had met in the North Vietnamese dele
11、gation.All in all, Mr. Harrison offered a broad range of gratuitous advice challenging and contradicting the policies outlined by the President of the United States. Where the President had issued a call for unity, Mr. Harriman was encouraging the country not to listen to him.A word about Mr. Harrim
12、an. For 10 months he was Americas chief negotiator at the Paris peace talks - a period in which the United States swapped some of the greatest military concessions in the history of warfare for an enemy agreement on the shape of the bargaining table. Like Coleridges Ancient Mariner, Mr. Harriman see
13、ms to be under some heavy compulsion to justify his failures to anyone who will listen. And the networks have shown themselves willing to give him all the air time he desires.Now every American has a right to disagree with the President of the United States and to express publicly that disagreement.
14、 But the President of the United States has a right to communicate directly with the people who elected him, and the people of this country have the right to make up their own minds and form their own opinions about a Presidential address without having a Presidents words and thoughts characterized
15、through the prejudices of hostile critics before they can even be digested.When Winston Churchill rallied public opinion to stay the course against Hitlers Germany, he didnt have to contend with a gaggle of commentators raising doubts about whether he was reading public opinion right, or whether Bri
16、tain had the stamina to see the war through. When President Kennedy rallied the nation in the Cuban missile crisis, his address to the people was not chewed over by a roundtable of critics who disparaged the course of action hed asked America to follow.The purpose of my remarks tonight is to focus your attention on this little group of men who not only enjoy a right of instant rebuttal to every Presidential address, but, more importantly, wield a free h
