Turn on your television and flip to the public-access cable channel, and you may find yourself watching Tom Metzger interview an extremist who shares his white-separatist, anti-Jewish, anti-black views.
The production values may not be sophisticated, and Metzger may not be vying for Jay Leno’s job as the new host of “The Tonight Show,” but the White Aryan Resistance leader is regularly broadcasting his message of hate to a potential viewing the country.
and he is doing it for free.
Metzger and several other extremists are taking advantage of a medium available to every resident of the nation’s 1,577 communities with public-access television.
Public-access television stations are prohibited by the federal Cable Communications Policy Act of 1984 from exercising any editorial control over a program, except for programming that is obscene or otherwise unprotected by the Constitution.
Though racism may be obscene to many, the legal measure of obscenity in this country is limited to sexual content.
So if a White Aryan Resistance supporter in your community submits an episode of Metzger’s program, ” Race and Reason, ” for broadcast, then the public-access station is legally required to air it.
In the largest 100 television markets in the country, 24 stations currently broadcast programs that preach racial and religious hatred, according to a new report by the Anti-Defamation League.
According to “Electronic Hate: Bigotry Comes to TV,” these 24 stations have recently aired 57 different programs, including Metzger’s “Race and Reason, ” “The Other Israel,” “Airlink,” “Crusade for Christ and Country,” “Our Israelite Origin” and “The Joe Goyim Show.”
MILLIONS OF HOUSEHOLDS
Louis Farrakhan’s Nation of Islam and the Institute for Historical Review, a group that denies the existence of the Nazi Holocaust, also provide videotapes for broadcast.
Although no exact figures exist for the number of public-access television viewers, the cable networks reach millions of households.
And according to a study in program by the National Clearinghouse on Audience Research for Community Cable Broadcasting at Western Michigan University, cited in the ADL report, as many as three-quarters of cable subscribers who get public-access TV tune to it at least once a month.
Even if just a small percentage of those subscribers watch the hate programming, the racists have reached tens — if not hundreds — of thousands of viewers, the ADL report notes.
While the content of the programs is all about hate, the way the various programs are packaged and their level of sophistication vary tremendously — from simple one-on-one interviews to professionally produced shows.
“Race and Reason” was probably the first hate program to be aired on public-access stations, and was first seen soon after the Cable Act was enacted in 1984.
It is also the most widely viewed hate program; it airs — or has aired recently — on 31 public-access stations.
The format never varies. Fifty-two-year-old Tom Metzger, a television repairman from Fallbrook, Calif; former Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan and the founder of the White Aryan Resistance, interviews spokesmen of other racist groups.
One recent viewer in Pittsburgh compared the appeal of the program to “a bad ‘Saturday Night Live.”‘
It gets such wide play because a single episode of “Race and Reason” gets “bicycled from community to community” where local supporters submit it to the public-access station in their town, says Carl Kucharski, chair of the public-policy committee of the National Federation of Local Cable Programmers.
SOPHISTICATED AND APPEALING
By contest, “The Other Israel” is, by some accounts, more dangerous because the quality of its production makes it much more sophisticated and appealing.
Produced and narrated by Ted Pike, “The Other Israel” is a “slick, professional film which uses a good deal of artwork and footage from various legitimate sources, ” the ADL report states.
It is currently shown on four cable networks, according to the ADL report, and an Arabic-language version of the program has also been shown several times.
Community response to programs like these has ranged from indifference to outrage, expressed in demonstrations, statements and newspaper articles.
Robert Purvis, legal director of the National Institute Against Prejudice and Violence, a Balti-more-based research, resource and educational organization, says the most effective way of responding to hate programming is by supporting the First Amendment.
“Although the focus of controversy may be a racist cable program, the racist program should be viewed as only part of the problem facing the community,” Purvis asserts in his report, “Bigotry and Cable TV: Legal Issues and Community Responses.”
A SPRINGBOARD FOR ACTION
“Public access should be supported as a First Amendment forum, and exploited as an integral part of a comprehensive strategy of prevention and response to prejudice.”
Rather than challenge the protection of racist speech under the First Amendment or try to silence the racists by eliminating public access altogether, those opposed to racism should “learn how to use this powerful medium, “he says.
When the broadcast of a racist program generates no local controversy, a low-key response should be considered, such as the submission of a positive program for broadcast, Purvis says.
But where controversy over racist cable programming does exist, it should b uses as a springboard for action.
“Recognize controversy as an opportunity, not necessarily a problem,” he says. “It means people care and are actively concerned about racism. Be prepared to channel this in positive directions” like the introduction of an ethnic intimidation statute into the state legislature, or the establishment of victim assistance programs.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
