Frank Stanton
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Frank Stanton (born 1908) was a U.S. businessman. He served as the president of CBS between 1946 and 1971. He also served as the chairman of the Rand Corporation from 1961 until 1967.
Stanton organized the first televised presidential debate in American history. Taking eight years, he finally managed to get Section 315 of the Communications Act of 1934 suspended for the election in 1960 to test a televised debate. The reason that Section 315 needed to be suspended was because it stated that equal air time must be given to all the candidates. The first debate was held and televised in the CBS studio in Chicago; John F. Kennedy vs. Richard M. Nixon. After the debate Stanton met with Richard J. Daley, the mayor of Chicago, who decided that after seeing the debate he would tell his men to go all out for Kennedy. Daley's support made an enormous difference, because it turned out that Illinois determined the election.
The debates, however, ceased after the 1960 election, as Lyndon Johnson avoided debating in 1964 and Richard Nixon, having learned his lesson, declined to debate in 1968 and in 1972. Thus televised presidential debates did not resume until 1976, when incumbent president Gerald Ford, perceiving he was behind in the polls, agreed to debate challenger Jimmy Carter.
As a president of CBS, Stanton's greatest battle with the government occurred in 1971, and focused on just this parallel to print press rights. The controversy surrounded The Selling of the Pentagon, a CBS News documentary, which exposed the huge expenditure of public funds, partly illegal, to promote militarism. The confrontation raised the issue of whether television news programming deserved protection under the First Amendment. Against threat of jail, Stanton refused the subpoena from the House Commerce Committee ordering him to provide copies of the outtakes and scripts from the documentary. He claimed that such materials are protected by the freedom of the press guaranteed by the First Amendment. Stanton observed that if such subpoena actions were allowed, there would be a "chilling effect" upon broadcast journalism.
Frank Stanton was born in Muskegon, Michigan, U.S., 20 March 1908. Educated at Ohio Wesleyan University, Delaware, Ohio, B.A. 1930; Ohio State University, Ph.D. 1935; diplomate from American Board of Professional Psychology.