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On Feb. 23, 1971, CBS News aired a primetime special on how the Department of Defense was spending millions every year on PR to promote the military, whip up support for the Vietnam War and warn of monolithic communism.
The Selling of the Pentagon touched off loud protests at the Nixon White House, the Pentagon, Congress and from a lot of American citizens. Vice President Spiro Agnew, always looking for opportunities to bash big media, called the program a “vicious broadside against the nation’s defense establishment.”
Some of the military officers who had appeared on the program cried foul, charging that their remarks had been unfairly distorted in the editing.
Among the outraged was Harley O. Staggers, the powerful chairman of the House Commerce Committee, which has FCC oversight. The West Virginia Democrat held hearings that led to a subpoena demanding the outtakes of the filmed interviews so officials could see for themselves if CBS had twisted the facts and misrepresented the officers. CBS refused the demand, citing journalists’ long-standing First Amendment privilege to be secure in their notes, recordings and drafts.
CBS President Frank Stanton, a staunch advocate for broadcasters’ First Amendment rights, took the lead in defending the network, arguing in congressional testimony and speeches that releasing the outtakes would hobble reporters’ ability to do their jobs.
“It is perfectly obvious to anybody who had ever had contact with journalists and the journalistic process that if the government has the right to do what this committee is proposing — to compare what has