America’s First Network TV Censor (2010). Pondillo, Robert. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press. pp. 254.
Federal Communications Commission regulation of sexual and other content has been limited, confusing, and often without resolution. Against this backdrop, one may argue that self-regulation within broadcast organizations is worthy of careful examination. Robert Pondillo is an associate professor of electronic media communication at Middle Tennessee State University. As a film writer and director, he recognized the value of analyzing the papers of Stockton Helffrich, NBC’s first manager of censorship. Pondillo utilized the papers, interviews, and other primary sources to paint a picture of how early censorship developed within one organizational context. He has interpreted this through a cultural and historical lens and argues that this period influenced future media.
The book would not have been possible, except for one important fact: Helffrich kept detailed notes: “literally thousands of them, eleven years of them—on just about every program, script, and commercial advertisement he viewed (and often censored) at the network” (p. ix). The more than 1,000 pages of 225-plus single-spaced “commentaries” became Pondillo’s rich database to go back in time and reconstruct events (p. x). His thesis draws from the “anxious” time of 1950s television: “And although bowdlerization, redaction, and expurgation are not usually associated with a time of ‘flourishing achievements,’ America’s first network TV censor—Stockton Helffrich—used such methods of suppression as tools of creativity” (p. 1).
Whether or not we can agree that 1948-60 was a “golden age” for network television, Pondillo wants us to see the post-war years as a time of innovation for both television and its censors. Thus, he places his analysis within the 1950s—along with its social and cultural mores. At the heart of the book is the idea that, while the older radio and movie industries established a professional framework, television was unique: “No other consumer technology had achieved such wide acceptance and cultural diffusion in so short a time” (p. 2). Adoption across most of the country happened in just over a decade. Most legal scholars see censorship as a matter of government restrictions on content. Yet, Pondillo sees self-regulation as “self-censorship” and advertiser pressure as “sponsor-sanctioned censorship.” He also labels those of us studying broadcast indecency as “contemporary pundits,” while skipping over the radio shock-jock era in his introduction and calling the 2004 Super Bowl halftime show “ground zero” for a “comeback” in “American media censorship” (pp. 2-3). Still, Pondillo’s parallel between Helffrich’s work and the current justification for regulating indecency—protecting children from sexual depiction, profanity, and even violence—is valuable.
Pondillo’s cultural approach also ignores useful context found in the early case law of radio regulation. He is clearly more interested in programming produced by the entertainment culture of the period. By late 1947, when Helffrich is put in charge and begins writing memoranda called “continuities,” television borrows from radio the idea of “uninterrupted” programming flow: “The notion of continuity also suggests a certain sameness or durable uniformity in programming: entertainment with its sharp edges removed, and, so, a safe haven for commercial messages” (p. 15). Interestingly, Pondillo found that these internal memoranda eventually were transformed into public relations external communication, as Helffrich became a public figure interviewed by Steve Allen and Jack Paar on the Tonight Show.
NBC and Helffrich found themselves being careful in the period that was defined by the Cold War and McCarthyism. As has been the case with all new media, television became “an inviting target” for those concerned that America was moving away from its traditional culture (p. 24). There was also pressure from the Legion of Decency and the Catholic Church. Influence could be exerted against the network or indirectly through its program sponsors.
Helffrich’s background presented challenges: In the 1930s, he had acted in performances of Waiting for Lefty, a drama about unionization sponsored by the Union Settlement and WPA. In response to the despair of the Great Depression, he joined the Popular Front, which was affiliated with the Communist Party of the United States of America (p. 37). The group mobilized the unemployed. After World War II, he joined the Radio Guild, which was part of the CIO. On the front page of White Collar Mike, Helffrich announced in 1946 that he was joining the union and urged others to do the same because “NBC executives are remiss in their handling of employee problems” (p. 45). Still, after a failed union vote and a second Red Scare, Helffrich resigned from the party and rejected Communism. Pondillo says Helffrich’s divorce, mental illness, and treatment made him a potential target. CPUSA leadership, as they did with known homosexuals, expelled anyone who could be blackmailed in the attack on communists. Following a private talk with the chair of the NBC board in which Helffrich admitted his associations, he was offered the Continuity Acceptance Department head job. Still, for a year, his activity was monitored in a rehabilitation arrangement. It is not clear from Pondillo’s book if Helffrich’s promotion was related to skills and intelligence, or something else.
NBC had one of the first blacklisting cases, but Pondillo concluded: “it appears the network bowed more to sponsor and advertising-agency insistence than to government pressures” (p. 52). Yet while many others were listed and fired, Helffrich and other NBC executives were not:
…I find no evidence that Helffrich was ever questioned or deposed by the U.S. government while at NBC-TV, How could this be? Speculation abounds but documentation goes begging. Clearly, this is an essential area for future scholarship (p. 53).
NBC had developed a guidebook, Responsibility: A Working Manual of NBC Program Policies, which helped to deflate pressures of Congress and the FCC to enact formal content regulation. The network created its own boundaries for acceptable commercial, sexual, racial, and other content, including prohibition on using profanity. Yet, by the time he left NBC in 1960, Helffrich had come to believe that “even a little bit of censorship is bad” (p. 194). He went to work for the National Association of Broadcasters’ Code Authority and retired in that position. Pondillo sees Helffrich as a visionary who helped define the issues in broadcasting. The examination of NBC, even given the important role Helffrich plays, is necessarily limited. Readers will yearn for comparative data from CBS and other networks, such as ABC and DuMont. The book could be a useful supplement in a history or regulation course. It will spark conversation in the classroom and scholarly communities.
JEREMY HARRIS LIPSCHULTZ
The University of Nebraska at Omaha