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Frank StantonFrank Stanton
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Session:         Page of 755

and put him in an embarrassing situation it could get the backs up of Congress to the point where they would demand a kind of censorship that would walk right on top of everything we always fought for in terms of freedom.

You do it in the movies now. “Jurassic Park” is a good example. Those dinosaurs never existed. They're all done on computer. Well if you could do those real objects--did you see that picture?

Q:

I saw parts of it, yes. I mean I saw it actually via cable, later. I turned it off pretty quickly. [Laughs]

Stanton:

Okay. If you can do that kind of thing with a computer, it gets in to the quality of what you're seeing. It's alright in the fictional area but it does begin to raise real problems in the hard news area. It's a little bit akin to introducing applause or turning up the volume on applause in a political speech, for example. If you want to make the guy look good you can insert fake applause. That's easy to do with radio and it's certainly easy to do with television. But that's just the beginning of what could happen in the news.

Q:

Well, I mean there's some--I'm recalling now the quiz show scandals and your statement to the National Broadcasters Association shortly after the scandals that the news was not manipulated in any way, and I'm wondering if there's been anything since those scandals that could shake things down so that those kind of statements have to be made again. Or do you think there will be something like that?

Stanton:

Oh, there will be something. Somebody's going to do something outrageous and





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