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Show Erlichman, McCarthy Debate Free Press in Salt Lake telling. After all, what the public knows so do our adversaries, therefore, in a practical sense, the right to know is a limited concept," Erlichman said the White House doesn't have a "monopoly "mon-opoly on co-opting the press." He cited "hometown coverage" of Congressmen as an example. In what might have been an unexpected stand, McCarthy chastised the press for taking advantage of the FOI. "The basic issue is the right to privacy. The press is inclinded to be less than fully concerned about the right of privacy of individuals." He cited the example of ascertaining ascer-taining the identities of drug traffickers in one case and delved further into answering answer-ing the questions surrounding surround-ing the responsibility of the press. According to McCarthy the press has the responsibility to publish "what people ought to know and need to know" without overtaking the issue. He explained what he meant by charging the press with unresponsible reporting in covering Joe McCarthy, he said the press was the "most responsible" for feeding McCarthy's anti-Communist anti-Communist views. "It wasn't the issue overtaking the press it was the press overtaking the issue and the press did the same thing with the Vietnam war." Both McCarthy and Erlichman Erlich-man were clearly unhappy about television coverage. McCarthy said he would gladly ban politics and religion from TV "it would spare us the highest and lowest of human expectations. expecta-tions. I would leave TV to the deodorants." He said Billy Graham has done a lot of harm to television by inventing religious TV. McCarthy said Graham's invention has been taken over by others and is at its worst when used for fund-raising. fund-raising. Erlichman's assessment of TV wasn't much better but he said he would like to think that" it's up to the individual as to what they watch on TV. He said he was disappointed that many people peo-ple especially during the Vietnam War got the impression im-pression that the White House was responsible for everything"no one cared about Congressmen." He said over-reliance on public officials has apparently spilled spill-ed over into the TV controversy, contro-versy, he cited Utah's growing legal battles over "pornography and cable TV. Here you are asking public officials to decide what parents are capable of deciding, that is what to see on TV and whether or not to turn the TV on." Erlichman's Erlich-man's comment sparked the only interruption of applause by the full house at Kingsbury Kings-bury hall. "It's an exmaple of a small group of people dictating what a largely unsophisticated people will watch." by Anne L. Burnett Record Correspondent "If the church doesn't decide what people should know, the press does" said one-time presidential candidate candi-date Eugene McCarthy. McCarthy was appearing with long-time Nixon aide John Eriichman at the University of Utah as part of a nation-wide series of debates between the two men. Long-time democrat and "liberal" as he explained to this reporter, McCarthy said the press has picked up the ''power religion has abandoned" aban-doned" and he said religion "ought to be careful not to let loose some of those powers because you don't know where they're going to end up." McCarthy said he supports a free press but "like Winston Churchill once said 'democracy is the worst possible form of government unless you consider the alternatives.' The free press is the worst possible form of communication unless you consider the alternatives like television." On this point Erlichman appeared to agree, he said he felt the fairness of his Watergate trail was jeopardized jeopar-dized by the "saturation of 1 the public mostly by TV coverage." He said he didn't consider himself an expert to debate the merits of the press and the First Amendment, Amend-ment, but he said he had considerable personal exper ience with it. He said he found an issue in "my right to a fair trail balanced with the press's right to know." The only real contests for the press said McCarthy involve ultimate rash judgments judg-ments from editors, and columnists including unsigned unsign-ed editorials. He said reporters need to be aware of being "had." He cited the example of the number of top Washington columnists who refuse to attend White House background briefings. He said reporters are wined and dined and before you know it they're in the pocket of the establishment. Otherwise impartial reporters report-ers became "to-opted" said McCarthy who cited the example of the Washington Post and then President Lyndon Johnson. "What bothers me most is when the executive branch co-ops the press. In Johnson's case the Post became part of the establishment and it affected the press' professional judgments." judg-ments." He noted the refusal by the Post to print the Pentagon Papers which ended up being made public anyway. "It wasn't the Pentagon Papers that caused all the controversy. The real thing that came out of all of that was how stupid the people in me Pentagon really were-now were-now I agree that's the kind of secret you'd want to keep." Erlichman said that from his experience in the White House he learned that there are "a lot of reasons aside from national security why all questions can't be answered. ans-wered. There are many things people know in the White House that they're not |
