The CHAIRMAN. You give us a solution, and we will be very glad

to hear it.

Mr. MORENCY. I think the essential solution is very simple: That not only in time but actual desire, the radio station treats both sides equitably.

Senator MAGNUSON. What is the procedure now?

Mr. MORENCY. The procedure now is very simple. If someone comes to us who wants to discuss a public question, it would work out about like this: Recently in my town we had a ballot taken in a proposal to change the city form of government from mayor to city management. It was a very important proposal, and we probably furnished three or four hours to each side. There were differing views on it. And we would make, on that important a question, no limitation really, because we thought it should be exhaustively heard by the people before they voted on it.

The CHAIRMAN. My point is: You, the broadcasters, make the decision now.

Mr. MORENCY. That is right.

The CHAIRMAN. And under the proposed bill, that decision would be placed elsewhere. Is that what you are objecting to?

Mr. MORENCY. That is what I am objecting to, first. The law says that I have to give twice the amount of time to somebody who opposes it if he asks for it.

The CHAIRMAN. Now, supposing that you make the wrong decision, or someone complains. Do they call the Communications Commission and do they in turn call you?

Mr. MORENCY. I have not had that experience, but that is the procedure, yes.

The CHAIRMAN. By that time, the campaign is over?

Mr. MORENCY. No, I think it acts fairly quickly. But this same procedure, as far as appeal to the Commission is concerned, would still be inherent in this. And as a matter of fact, I do not think the Commission, even, would say that they could judge what the citizens of Connecticut should hear, as well as we do, when our only objection is to have those citizens hear as much as possible, and see to it that it is presented as fairly as possible.

Senator JOHNSON. Do you follow the practice that is followed by a great many broadcasters: Of giving one side of a controversy a favorable spot and giving the other side a very unfavorable spot?

Mr. MORENCY. First, Senator, I know that is not a general practice in the industry; and secondly, Senator, we never do.

Senator JOHNSON. How do you know that is not general practice in the industry? Have you any evidence?

Mr. MORENCY. Yes; I think we have a lot of evidence.

Senator JOHNSON. I wish you would submit it for the record, because that is one of the controversies coming before us, and I should like to have something in the record on that point. My understanding is that it has been the general practice on some controversial questions at least, to give one side a very favorable spot and give the other side an extremely unfavorable spot.

Mr. MORENCY. Well, you know, the Commission has the requirement right now that we keep a record of all requests for time to discuss public issues; and that on demand that record must be opened. You have to keep a record, and if you turn down the request, you have to put

down the reason for such a refusal, and you have to show the times that were assigned.

Senator MAGNUSON. How does the rule work now; or is there any practice? Supposing that I disagreed with some commentator, discussing a public question. He is paid, however. And I come to you and say, "I want to discuss for 15 minutes, the other side of the question." What is the practice in that case?

Mr. MORENCY. If you are talking about a network commentator, you would address yourself to the network that put that first speaker

on.

Senator MAGNUSON. Let us put it on the local level.

Mr. MORENCY. All right. If it were our station, and you could in any way show that he had espoused some cause with which you disagreed, and it was a public question, we would give you equal time.

Senator MAGNUSON. Have you had any people come in with that request?

Mr. MORENCY. I do not want to get this down to too local a level, but we had one commentator who mostly concerned himself with international affairs, plus Washington doings. As far as we know, he does not belong to any political party, and his mail shows that half the people think he sways this way, and half think he sways the other way, so we think he is pretty objective. And we have never had a demand for time to answer what he has said.

Senator MAGNUSON. But if a demand were made under the present law, in the absence of legislation, anybody could demand equal time when this commentator discusses some political subject?

Mr. MORENCY. That is right; yes, sir. And we would allow that equal time.

Senator MAGNUSON. Would the same practice apply to the networks?

Mr. MORENCY. Well, the networks are going to be on on Monday, and they will answer that. But I know from the record that that has occurred, and time has been allocated to answer certain commentators.

Senator MAGNUSON. If that is true, unless something is done, it is conceivable that if you had three commentators on your radio station discussing public questions, you would have somebody else go on every day for the same period of time. Is that correct?

Mr. MORENCY. Not with our commentator, at least, because when he discusses a public question he attempts earnestly to give both sides of that public question.

Senator MAGNUSON. And you, then, would say that his comments were not controversial in nature, because he is merely attempting to report the facts, and you would deny anyone a request to go on with similar time?

Mr. MORENCY. We would deny it if the broadcast itself, of which we have a transcript, showed that he had properly presented both sides of one issue. If it was obvious from an examination of the recording that he had not, time would be assigned.

Senator JOHNSON. You hold membership in a network?
Mr. MORENCY. Affiliation.

Senator JOHNSON. If a network gets into trouble over a controversial question, you are not compelled to carry both sides, are you? That is, you may have carried one side, and when the other side comes

in, it is your judgment prevails as to whether you take care of them or not; you are not compelled to carry both sides?

Mr. MORENCY. No; that is not true.

Senator JOHNSON. Are you compelled to take everything the network gives you in the way the network gives it to you?

Mr. MORENCY. No; not at all. We are not compelled to take anything the network features.

Senator JOHNSON. That is what I thought. You use your own judgment.

Mr. MORENCY. But here is how it operates, if you are interested in that: When the NBC, which is the network we are affiliated with, is going to put on a speaker on a public issue, they notify us of the time; and usually in the same wire it will say that the following week someone will discuss the opposite side of the question.

Senator JOHNSON. And the following week you do not carry the other side of the broadcast unless you want to; is that correct?

Mr. MORENCY. Unless we want to; except that we always want to, Senator. Because we have an absolute rule on our station that we will present things equitably. It is our only desire. We do not sit up there and try to make a case for one side on anything.

Senator JOHNSON. I presume that that is true, and I compliment you on that attitude. But after all, it is because you have that attitude that you act in that way. If you had the contrary attitude, you would not be required by anybody to carry the other side of the controversial question that was furnished you by a network.

free choice in the matter?

Mr. MORENCY. That is right.

You have

Senator JOHNSON. That is the only point I wanted to make, sir. I am not trying to pin anything on you, because I presume that you are rendering a good service.

Mr. MORENCY. We hope we are. We certainly always try to. Senator, may I turn to page 3 of my statement, here?

The proposed section 331, also a part of section 17, requires an immense amount of detail. It requires that before a broadcaster may permit the use of his station for a presentation of any public or political questions under section 315 or 330, he must procure in writing from the person or persons arranging or contracting for the broadcast time (a) the name of the speaker or speakers; (b) the subject of the discussion; (c) the capacity in which the speaker or speakers appear; that is, whether on their own account as an individual candidate or public officer, or as a representative, advocate, or employee of another; and how the time for the broadcast is made available, and if paid for, by whom.

All of this information must be announced at the beginning and end of each broadcast.

We have a New England Forum program originating in Washington here every Saturday night, on which appear the members of the New England delegation to Congress. Now, it is just a little awkward to ask for them to submit in writing all of this detail when they are just going to discuss a public question on a half-hour program. I do not really think that that is meant: that we should go through such an immense amount of detail and subject Senators and Representatives to that annoyance.

Further, to procure and broadcast this material before and after each program would really be cutting down the time available for the discussion of the issue in point.

Now, at the bottom of page 3:

During political campaigns, it is not unusual for a political party to use 5-minute broadcasts. This is particularly true of single station broadcasts, as contrasted to networks.

Under this proviso, most of that 5-minute period would be devoted to complying with this provision, to the great detriment of the speaker, his cause, and the public. It is just a lot of material that is not necessary in our opinion to identify speakers already well known to the

audience.

Every station makes sufficiently clear, by announcement, the subject matter, the speakers, their connections, and everything; but this makes you reiterate it twice, and just makes for a dull broadcast.

The CHAIRMAN. I do not know immediately where to put my finger on it, but in the bill there is a provision that shall not apply to a public officer.

Mr. MORENCY. I noticed that, but you still require, in the case of the public officer, that the announcement be made at the beginning and at the end; that it has to cover the subject of the discussion, and whether or not the office is elective or appointive, and so on. Well, when you appear on our New England Regional Forum that would be extraneous material.

The CHAIRMAN. Well, I am not running.

Mr. MORENCY. When you appear on this program, you appear to discuss questions just pertaining to New England. Now, to identify you and your political unit, and the fact that you were elected and not appointed, both before and after the program, and to do it to the other three speakers also on the program, would be rather difficult. The CHAIRMAN. I cannot see any substantial objection to identifying the speakers sufficiently to take the knowledge home to the listening public as to who the speaker is and what he is, and whom he speaks for, whether for himself or for somebody else. I think the people who are listening to these radio programs have a right to pretty full information.

Mr. MORENCY. We give them that.

The CHAIRMAN. And it often might happen that a sufficient identification of the speaker is of more value than what he might say.

Mr. MORENCY. Well, I would not like to judge that, Senator. Senator JOHNSON. It would take about 5 seconds to identify the speaker, and that is what you are quibbling about?

Mr. MORENCY. I don't think it is quibbling.

Senator JOHNSON. I think it is, when you are objecting to identifying speakers, although it takes only a fraction of a minute to do it. And I think it is picayunish quibbling.

Mr. MORENCY. I do not agree; because the listener has a case here. If I have to say, "Senator White, of Maine, Republican. He was elected and not appointed," and I have to say that before and after the broadcasts, and also do it for the other three Senators on the broadcasts, I say that is tedious and no listener should be subjected to it.

I say that the listening audience already knows that Senator White was elected.

Senator MAGNUSON. All you would have to say is, "This is Senator White, Republican, of Maine."

Mr. MORENCY. No; you have to go on and say that he was elected and not appointed.

Senator MAGNUSON. No, when you say "Senator," that identifies the fact that he was elected.

Mr. MORENCY. I would not say so, from the language in the bill. Senator MAGNUSON. I think that is about all you would need.

Mr. MORENCY. That would assume that all of our citizens knew that a Senator was elected. And I think that Hooper or Gallup would tell you that that is not true. They do not all know it.

The CHAIRMAN. I never had so much publicity given to me before in my life.

Senator MAGNUSON. In other words, your point is that if the provision of the bill should require much more information than I have just stated to you, probably it would spoil the broadcast.

Mr. MORENCY. That is right.

Senator MAGNUSON. I do not think it is in the intent of the bill to require what you think it would require.

Senator JOHNSON. If the bill requires that, then the bill is picayunish.

Mr. MORENCY. Thank you, Senator. Maybe we can split that. Senator MAGNUSON. Let me ask you another question: Do you not think that a private citizen expressing political views should be identified over the radio, as to who he represents?

Mr. MORENCY. Definitely.

Senator MAGNUSON. Do you not believe that a commentator, also expressing political views, should identify whom he represents on the radio and who pays him?

Mr. MORENCY. That is right. I definitely do. And the more unknown the speaker's name, the more clearly he should be identified. His background should be given and his connections. I agree with all of that.

The next point I wanted to comment on was the identification of news sources. And I think that is important. I think that if we have to identify all news sources, those sources will dry up for us. They will dry up for radio. They will not, for our competing medium, the newspapers and magazines. Because we cannot always quote the source of information. That is pretty well known. One of the best known phrases is "a well informed authority."

Senator MAGNUSON. Or "a reliable source."

Mr. MORENCY. Yes. And then you can give both sides. For instance, on our station, we use three news services, and we announce that the dispatches were assembled from those three news services, plus our own reporters. That is what we do now. If one of our reporters has good information from some public officer, who at that time does not want to be quoted, I do not think he should be quoted. The CHAIRMAN. That is what we want you to tell us. We want you to tell us what you think this language means, what its application and enforcement would mean, and tell us whether it ought to go out the window, or whether something of the sort should stay in the bill.

Everybody, I think, would agree that the people of this country are entitled to have some assurances of the authenticity of what is said to them over the radio, as to the responsibility of the speaker, as to