THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, March 10, 1996 TAG: 9603100153
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: PAUL SOUTH
LENGTH: Medium: 77 lines
Not so many years ago, while cities like Birmingham, Detroit and Los Angeles became fiery furnaces of racial hatred, Atlanta held its shoulders back, stuck its chin out, and called itself ``The City Too Busy to Hate.''
But after the way one of its television stations, as well as its police department, treated Republican presidential candidate Allen Keyes, I have a new slogan:
``Atlanta: Where the only Constitution is a newspaper.''
Most of you probably saw news reports of Keyes being handcuffed and hauled from the studios of WSB-TV, where a station-sponsored debate was being held for the Republican presidential candidates. Keyes, who had participated in earlier forums, was denied the right to participate in the Georgia event.
Following the debate, Keyes was taken into custody and later dumped in a seedy part of town. Did I miss something? Has a military junta taken power in the Peachtree City?
Station officials contended they invited only the top four vote-getters in the previous primaries and caucuses ``because this offers the voters of Georgia the most substantive debate.''
Remember folks, this is Georgia, the state that gave us Lester Maddox, the segregationist governor who rode bicycles backward and handed out axe handles at his rallies. Substance, schmubstance.
If WSB had been really interested in ideas at its debate, it would have invited Sen. Richard Lugar of Indiana to talk about foreign policy. Keyes argues that he has a plan to bring about a moral revival in America. I may be an Alabama country boy, but that sounds like heady stuff to me.
But there are other issues here beyond Keyes' participation. There are a number of people who are concerned that the media, through its selective coverage of political candidates, controls the political agenda and unduly influences the outcome of elections.
When a candidate of a major political party is denied access to a debate, stations like WSB not only spit in the face of the First Amendment, but they do a disservice to their viewers. The right to free press and free speech in this country is a sacred trust. When a television station or newspaper stifles open debate, we move a step closer to losing that right.
We talk the talk about encouraging greater citizen participation in government. But what kind of message does it send when media denies a candidate the right to speak, particularly the first African-American GOP presidential hopeful?
Another troubling aspect of all this is that there has virtually no outcry from the Republican Party or the African-American community.
Republican National Committee Chairman Haley Barbour said that because the debate was sponsored by a private concern, there was nothing the GOP could do.
Well, with all its rhetoric about expanding the tent and encouraging greater diversity in its ranks, the GOP could have done something. If the candidates had a morsel of integrity, they would have threatened to pull out of the debate unless Keyes was admitted. Give Haley Barbour the 1996 Bill Clinton I Did Not Inhale Award for Cop-Out of the Year by a political figure.
And in the African-American community, only NAACP head Kweisi Mfume criticized WSB and Atlanta officials concerning Keyes' treatment. The Rev. Jesse Jackson and The Rev. Al Sharpton remained silent. I guess since Keyes is a Republican African-American, it doesn't matter that he was treated like a common criminal.
And what does the Keyes affair say about us as a nation?
It says that those among us who have concerns about the media undermining the democratic process may have good reason to be scared.
It says that we are hypocrites for lashing out against the treatment of political dissidents in totalitarian regimes, yet we sit quietly while a major presidential candidate is hauled away by police in front of a watching world.
His crime? Attempting to exercise his constitutional right to speak.
And right or wrong, antics like WSB's give credence to Nikita Khrushchev's claim that America would rot from the inside and fall like an apple from a tree. For when one among us is denied freedom, we are all a step closer to the same fate. by CNB