The television show "Murphy Brown" made it into the news again last week
and took more criticism from federal officials.As it happened, the fracas
surrounding the show turned out to be more amusing than the sitcom itself.

The plot called for newscaster Murphy, whose character has breast cancer,
to find that none of the medicines prescribed to control her
postchemotherapy nausea are effective. She then obtains and smokes some
pot. It gave her relief and gave the writers a chance to make jokes about
the old days in the Sixties.

Outrageous, said Drug Enforcement Administration honcho Thomas
Constantine. The show was"doing a great disservice"by"trivializing drug
abuse" and "pandering to the libertarian supporters of an 'open society' and
to the myths of legalization. "(An aside:Regular readers know we supported
California's medical marijuana initiative.)

Murphy Brown producers said there was no political message at all,
certainly not one of support for medical marijuana. It was, they said,
merely a dramatization of a situation that can and has occurred in real
life. The point of humor turned on the straightlaced Jim Dial character
overcoming his reluctance and obtaining the pot, motivated by his deep
friendship with Murphy.

Perhaps the producers intended only humor, but we suspect that they didn't
mind too much when Mr. Constantine and Attorney General Janet Reno weighed
in with silly criticisms and gave the somewhat weary show another publicity
boost.

The less amusing aspect of the whole affair is the implicit pressure by
high government officials on producers of entertainment. Neither Mr.
Constantine nor Ms. Reno came right out and said such outrageous programs
should be banned. But when members of an administration that has tried to
censor cyberspace, has pushed for a Vchip on television and expressed
concern over the content of entertainment programming pointedly choose to
criticize a sitcom, one can presume they're trying to send a massage.

They clearly hope other entertainment producers will stick to the orthodoxy
government prefersand if they don't, the feds just might work harder to
find a way to gain control over entertainment programming.

Last time we looked, the private sector produced plenty of TV critics.