The Press: Facts-Forum Facts

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In the Washington bureau of the Providence morning Journal (circ. 45,767) and evening Bulletin (145,255), Bureau Chief Frederic W. Collins got a routine offer. He was invited to appear (for $125) on a TV interview show put on by Facts Forum, a nonprofit, "nonpartisan, nonpolitical educational organization." Newsman Collins made a quick check of Facts Forum, turned down the offer and wrote a story suggesting that Facts Forum is "not all it appeared to be." The Journal-Bulletin did not let the matter drop; they assigned Reporter Ben H. Bagdikian, 33, to a two-month investigation of Facts Forum. Last week, in a Page-One, eight-part series, Reporter Bagdikian showed that Facts Forum is less a nonpartisan educational foundation than one of the biggest private political-propaganda machines in the U.S.

The mystery man behind Facts Forum: Dallas' H. L. (for Haroldson Lafayette) Hunt, 64, who "may be the richest man in America," with an income from oil, natural gas and farmland estimated to be more than $200,000 a day.* Oilman Hunt is so shy of publicity that he is rarely photographed and his name does not even appear in Who's Who in America. He refused to see Reporter Bagdikian, but he did talk to him over the phone and answered some written questions. As a "nonprofit national educational organization," Hunt's Facts Forum is tax exempt, and Hunt's contributions are deductible from his personal income tax. Furthermore, Facts Forum's radio-TV programs, run as a "public service," thus get more than $1,000,000 a year in nationwide free time (it has only a few local sponsors).

The Outlook. In less than three years, reported the Journal-Bulletin, Hunt has built Facts Forum into an organization with 125,000 "participants," whose programs include: 1) a half-hour weekly radio-TV show, Answers for Americans (used on 22 TV stations and available to 360 radio stations), 2) two nationwide weekly radio broadcasts, State of the Nation (available to 315 stations) and Facts Forum's basic "both sides" programs (222 stations), and 3) a half-hour show TV-filmed in Washington (58 TV stations). In addition, Facts Forum's "public-opinion" polls go to 1,800 U.S. newspapers, 500 radio and TV stations and every member of Congress, while its monthly Facts Forum News goes to a mailing list of 60,000.

If Facts Forum were nonpartisan and educational as it claims to be, said the Journal-Bulletin, there would be little reason for people to quarrel with its activities. "One of the most admirable projects a man of wealth could undertake," wrote Bagdikian, "would be the stimulation of rational debate among Americans . . ."