Ending the Whitewash

By Ron Stodghill

For decades now, especially in the past couple of years, black actors have complained about being snubbed for starring roles on TV. So after the TV networks announced their fall lineups last spring, Kweisi Mfume arrived in Hollywood with his own script proposal. The N.A.A.C.P. president cast himself as the leading man, a swaggering yet politically correct Terminator of all things racist about Tinseltown. His first mission: to strong-arm the networks into hiring more minorities to work in front of and behind the cameras. Mfume's early salvos had the fire of civil rights rhetoric of the '60s, as he railed against the "virtual whitewash" on network TV. In private he was just as confrontational. "I don't like this diplomacy s___," he whispered to an aide before a meeting with CBS Entertainment president Leslie Moonves in August. "We should just bring out the picket signs, bar the doors, get arrested and make the 6 o'clock news."

Mfume didn't get arrested, but he got the attention he wanted. The N.A.A.C.P.'s campaign to rectify the color balance in network TV has made headlines for months, most recently when representatives of three of the four major networks walked out of an N.A.A.C.P. "diversity hearing" on Nov. 29. (They were unhappy at being denied the microphone for hours following the testimony of Moonves, the only network top dog to show up.) But for all the verbal grenades fired, the N.A.A.C.P. campaign has sort of stumbled along. A network boycott originally planned for November was postponed, while some within the N.A.A.C.P. leadership grumbled privately that Mfume's first high-profile campaign since taking the organization's helm in 1996 was ill-conceived.

Still, the campaign is about to bear at least some fruit. Following a series of meetings between network chiefs and N.A.A.C.P. officials in Baltimore over the past couple of weeks, the four networks are close to an agreement to implement a series of diversity initiatives, while the N.A.A.C.P. has all but dropped its boycott threat. Mfume seems to have realized that old-line civil rights tactics of boycotts and picket lines hold less sway on the Left Coast than power lunches and air kisses. What finally worked was the same back-room conciliatory politics that made Mfume a force on Capitol Hill for a decade. "Network TV will never again look like it did this fall," Mfume told TIME in an interview. "We're winning on this issue in a way most people thought impossible."

Whether it is seen as a win or a weak compromise remains to be seen. The pact, TIME has learned, does not set any quotas for minority representation either in front of or behind the cameras. But it does lay out ambitious goals in some 30 areas where the networks can improve opportunities for minorities. For example, it requires each network to establish a recruitment program for minority managers and writers; to "make every effort to increase its promotional spending for minority shows"; and to appoint at least one new African American to its board of directors by Sept. 1, 2000. Some of the goals are vague and difficult to enforce, like a provision that the networks "cease any practice of ghettoizing 'black shows' whereby they are scheduled together on nights without white programming." That flies in the face of longtime programming principles of "audience flow"--scheduling shows that appeal to similar audiences together. Nor can the agreement force the networks to keep low-rated shows on the air or force advertisers to pay high rates for commercial time on them. While studies show that blacks watch far more television than non-blacks--about 70.4 hours a week and 50.2 hours, respectively--advertisers remain unwilling to pay premium rates for black-oriented shows that often have little crossover appeal.

Still, the diversity campaign has already achieved a good deal by highlighting a problem that grew too blatant to ignore this season. Of the 26 new fall shows announced by the networks, none featured an African American, Latino or Asian American in a leading role. When the N.A.A.C.P. complained, the network honchos admitted the problem and began scrambling to add minority roles. NBC's ER brought on a black woman doctor and an Asian medical student, for example, while CBS's new series Judging Amy tossed in a black bailiff.

The diversity agreement would signal a major effort to go beyond such quick fixes. It would also score a much needed victory for the N.A.A.C.P., which has spent much of the past decade dogged by financial woes, an embarrassing sex scandal and a dimmed place on the national political radar. Mfume, 51, has been lauded for putting the organization back on solid financial footing and increasing its sagging membership rolls. But he has been criticized for failing to steer the organization into such controversial issues as affirmative action and welfare reform.

Diversity on TV is not exactly a front-burner issue for many African Americans either. And it's likely that Mfume will face some grumbling from civil rights old-liners that any goodwill covenant with the networks that lacks enforcement teeth is not worth much. But Mfume may wind up having more impact by playing the Negotiator than the Terminator.

Midwest bureau chief Ron Stodghill was co-author of Mfume's 1996 memoir No Free Ride