eign Commerce Committee, which was conducting an investigation
into The Selling of the Pentagon. ¹ They said, "This is it." It called for
the production of all material involved in the production of the pro-
gram, including the film not broadcast, known in the industry as the
"outtakes."

Ordinarily, staff members of a subcommittee would have gotten in
touch with the CBS Washington office, maintained to represent CBS
in the capital and to provide service to the Congress, the Federal Com-
munications Commission (FCC), the White House and other agen-
cies of the government. "I remember saying to them that they came all
the way up from Washington to give this to me. You could have deliv-
ered it at my Washington office," Stanton says. But obviously a point
was being made. An official government presence was being regis-
tered. ²

Starting with the Radio Act of 1927 and continuing under the Com-
munications Act of 1934, as amended, broadcasters had accommo-
dated to considerable oversight by the Congress and the FCC. Unlike
the print press, which is free of government interference under the
First Amendment, the rationale for government supervision of broad-
casters was that they used limited electronic spectrum, which required
a grant by the government. Government regulation was needed to
prevent one station's signal from interfering with another's. In addi-
tion, the government set criteria for the granting and renewal of li-
censes. Certain types of programming were required for the stations'
broadcast schedules, including news and public affairs. The FCC ex-
amined the stations' performance at renewal time to see if the statu-
tory standard of "public interest, convenience and necessity" was met.
The FCC assessed the licensees' "character" and their compliance with
FCC regulations and congressional statutes. ³

Congress and the FCC had conducted a number of investigations
into broadcasters' news operations and news coverage. But Stanton
saw this subpoena as different and as posing an issue of fundamental
significance for television news. It was a clear and direct assault by
Congress on the independence of the editorial judgment of the televi-
sion press and was directed to a news report on the government itself.

If a congressional committee could review news content and edito-
rial judgment and subpoena outtakes for that purpose, there could be
no independent news. The continuing exercise of such government
power and review of broadcast news content would not only under-
mine the freedom of television news, it would destroy its ability to

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