The first meeting of the evaluation committee [on violent tv on youth] took place at the Center for Advanced Study at Stanford. Ed Parker and I were invited to sit in on the meeting. We were surprised to find that 40% of the committee membership was tied to the broadcast industry - two network researchers, two network consultants, and a former research executive at CBS. We enlisted Senator Metcalf to obtain information on the selection procedure. Health, Education and Welfare Secretary Finch explained that each network was allowed to veto, without explanation, any of the nominations on the list submitted by professional associations and the broadcast networks...He explained that the tobacco industry was given veto power in the formation of the committee to evaluate the health effects of smoking. The report would have great impact, he claimed, if the committee members were entirely objective.
Writing the report created headaches for the broadcast-linked members because the empirical data were not friendly to a conclusion of null effects. The report by Jack Gould (1972) was written in opaque technobbable that was better suited to confuse than inform the public...a copy was leaked to the New York Times, which published a column on the report under the misleading headline, "TV Violence Held Unharmful to Youth"
From Bandura's autobiography:
:agony-shivering:
I read that as Bandera, as in the Ukrainian Nazi, and was very very confused