Free Air Time Can Level Election Field--Let’s Do It : Fox TV’s pro bono offer would aid electoral fairness : The other TV networks, instead of sniping at Murdoch, ought to emulate his offer.

Among countries where democratic elections are the norm, only two fail to offer free television time to national candidates. Americans won’t be surprised to hear that their country is one. They might be embarrassed to learn that Russia is the other. Selling air time to presidential candidates may be in the grand tradition of American politics, but there are times when some traditions deserve to be abandoned and this is one of them. Rupert Murdoch, chairman of the News Corp., is ready to give the major party presidential nominees an hour of free time on election eve next November. Murdoch’s Fox TV network is not exactly celebrated far and wide for the standards of its regular programming, but no matter. Murdoch is offering something that serves the public interest, and he deserves credit for his initiative.

That doesn’t necessarily mean that he’ll get it. The major commercial networks, ABC, CBS and NBC, have rushed to heap scorn on his offer. Unlike their organizations, they say, Fox has only a small news division, provides scant public affairs programming and pays little attention to the kind of analysis the major networks like from their anchorpersons and pundits during elections or after a State of the Union speech, for example. All true, but so what? The American people can listen to a couple of half-hour speeches by the major candidates and survive without being immediately told the real meaning of what they just heard.

This isn’t to suggest that Murdoch’s offer is selfless. Because it’s pro bono doesn’t necessarily mean it’s not also intended to be pro-Murdoch. Along with the rest of the television industry, Fox is worried about a Senate proposal to make the networks pay for the extra channels they need to provide higher quality--in the technical sense--digital television. Fox may also have particular reason to worry about the growing volume of attacks on the sleaziness of so much of TV programming and the push for technology that would at least allow parents to insulate their children from such trash. So Murdoch may indeed have ulterior motives. But that doesn’t diminish the merit of his free-time offer.

The nation’s fundamental free-speech law lets candidates who don’t accept matching federal campaign funds spend as much as they like to try to put their message across, a right that can give the really rich the opportunity to saturate the airwaves. Remember all those Ross Perot “infomercials” four years ago? And if Steve Forbes spent $4 million for TV time in Arizona, what will he spend when he campaigns in California? Being able to buy a lot of TV time doesn’t guarantee electoral triumph. But lacking the money to buy TV time at the right moment could well contribute to electoral defeat. Not just fairness to candidates but, far more critically, fairness to voters dictates the need for free TV time during major campaigns.

The other TV networks, instead of sniping at Murdoch, ought to emulate his offer. And all ought to insist that we want to hear the candidates, not see slick film images of their messages. A few hours of free time for major candidates spread out over the course of the campaign would be a public service, and it is still the public, after all, to whom the air waves belong.

Would voters pay any more attention to candidates’ messages if they were delivered on free rather than paid time? There’s no way to know. Would the major candidates, each given a free half-hour, and maybe more if all the networks participated, be any more revealing than they are now about where they stand on the great issues of the day? The public should insist on that, but even a calculated lack of candor can tell voters much of what they need to know about a candidate. The issue in any event isn’t what the candidates might say--if they’re inclined to dissemble and lie they will do so whether their air time is paid for or free--but opportunities for them to be fairly heard no matter what they can afford to spend. Money has become the great corrupting force in our politics. Consider a minimum amount of free TV time to be a modest blow against corruption.