Newswatch

By Thomas Griffith

A documentary about ordinary life in the Soviet Union that is running all summer on public TV's Frontline series raises anew television's core question: Should I believe what I see with my own eyes?

The series, called Comrades, was made by the BBC over a 21-month period. The British filmmakers were allowed unusual privileges to photograph inside a Red Army barracks and a Soviet courtroom, and to spend days trailing ordinary citizens around. Inevitably, what is shown is often appealingly human, so even in Britain, where there is more tolerance in such matters than in this country, there were complaints of propaganda when the series was shown. Anticipating trouble, Frontline decided to add "wraparounds" to discuss concerns about propaganda. (Usually when the subject is Communism, a prudent station operator wants at least one panelist who will argue that Gorbachev is no better than a smiling Genghis Khan.) Which raises another question: Is the American public so susceptible to alien wiles that it cannot stand any direct exposure to reality that does not come carefully wrapped in ideological cautions?

It depends on what is meant by reality. In a dictatorship allergic to cameras and hostile to free reporting, even to show "ordinary life" often requires Soviet permission, and vetting of who is shown. Print journalists manage to suggest these limitations in what they write. But on the screen the eye sees an irrefutable "reality" that compellingly overrides whatever the ear is being told. This is what makes television so powerful, and on occasion so worrisome. As shown, Rita Tikhonova, the model 21-year-old Moscow student who becomes a teacher, is a real and sympathetic individual. The unstated implication is that she also is typical. The people shown were to a degree handpicked, but BBC Producer Richard Denton was at least able to interview them without his Soviet guides being present. However, he quickly concedes, "they've been coached all their lives."

Documentary makers for American networks have always envied the freedom enjoyed by their British colleagues. BBC documentaries often proclaim a clearly stated point of view. Only if its thesis can be seriously challenged is a rebuttal scheduled. In an American documentary, each side of an issue -- Right-to-Life or abortion -- is balanced out, in effect adding up to zero. The trick then is to choose a subject bold enough to attract listeners but to present it so neutrally that the network does not end up in later hassles. Perhaps this is why on all three networks documentaries are a dutiful and dying form.

It is easy enough to condemn nervous Nellies at the networks for avoiding controversy. No network, for example, wants to be known as the liberal or conservative network, for this would shut off segments of the big audiences that their advertisers want to reach. This neutrality, this blandness, embodied somewhat loosely in what is called the Fairness Doctrine, is perhaps unavoidable in commercial conduits that must serve large and diverse audiences. Public television has more freedom but sometimes has trouble getting commercial underwriting to make controversial documentaries.

There is one significant exception to the controlled balancing of views on American television. This is the role of television evangelists, free to hire airtime to praise or excoriate as they please. Their right to proclaim religious views is protected; increasingly many use it to discuss politics. They, more than anyone else in the country, enjoy unchallenged broadcast freedom of speech, which may be one reason they have become so influential.