Corporate censorship

Corporate censorship is censorship by corporations, the sanctioning of speech by spokespersons, employees, and business associates by threat of monetary loss, loss of employment, or loss of access to the marketplace.

In 1969, Nicholas Johnson, United States Federal Communications Commission (FCC) commissioner, and then president of CBS News Richard Salant, debated the scope and existence of corporate censorship in a series of articles published in TV Guide.

Johnson's view, put forward in an article entitled The Silent Screen is that "Censorship is a serious problem" in the United States, and that he agrees with the statements by various network officials that television is subject to it, but disputes "just who is doing most of the censoring". He states that most television censorship is corporate censorship, not government censorship. One of the several examples that he gives in support of this argument is that of WBAI in New York City, which the FCC declined to censure for the publication a poem that was alleged to be anti-Semitic. He argues that "[m]any broadcasters are fighting, not for free speech, but for profitable speech. In the WBAI case, for example, one of the industry's leading spokesmen, Broadcasting magazine, actually urged that WBAI be punished by the FCC – and on the same editorial page professed outrage that stations might not have an unlimited right to broadcast profitable commercials for cigarettes which may result in illness or death."

Johnson quotes examples of corporate censorship reported by Stan Opotowsky in TV  – The Big Picture: "Ford deleted a shot [of] the New York skyline because it showed the Chrysler building [...] A breakfast-food sponsor deleted the line 'She eats too much' from a play because, as far as the breakfast-food company was concerned, nobody could ever eat too much." He quotes Bryce Rucker writing in The First Freedom that "Networks generally have underplayed or ignored events and statements unfavorable to food processors and soap manufacturers". He notes that "corporate tampering with the product of honest and capable journalists and creative writers and performers can be quite serious". He points to a 3 September 1969 report by Variety that ABC "had tailored some of its documentaries to fit the corporate desires of Minnesota Mining & Manufacturing Company", and cites examples given by Bill Greeley in a 4 February 1970 Variety article of "shrunken or vanished" documentaries at CBS, which have been "shelved, turned down, or killed".

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