"Stupid & Irresponsible"

Is the gigantic broadcasting industry, with its wealth of communication facil ities and its boasts of "public service," actually serving the people? Last week, with a firm case in point, the New York Times answered with a resounding no that rocked Manhattan executive suites. The networks' failure to carry the crucial session of the U.N. Security Council (at which the U.S. split with France and Britain) was roundly denounced by the Times's TV Critic Jack Gould as "stupid, selfish and irresponsible--an absolute mockery of the industry's obligation to serve the public interest." Where were the Big Three chains on this historic occasion? Displaying Veteran Cashier Bert Parks and his moneybags, putting Wyatt Earp through his heroic paces and inviting the nation to Name That Tune. (Only one TV station in the U.S. carried the U.N.--Manhattan's local WPIX.)

Parlor Carnival. "When the chips were down, the networks lived in their narrow, narrow world" of crass commercialism, cried Critic Gould, who appealed to NBC Boss David Sarnoff, CBS Chairman Bill Paley and ABC President Leonard Goldenson to "search their consciences" and "have a long hard look at their operations."

To the Times, the broadcasters' usual explanations about high rescheduling costs was no excuse. "Every journalistic medium has high costs when an emergency occurs," said Gould. "It is part of the overhead that goes with the privilege of having access to the country's minds ... If TV is to be only a parlor carnival, let it say so and stop its pompous proclamations about being in the field of communications."

Two of the networks tossed off quick rebuttals: ABC's News Boss John Daly felt that the U.N. story "vitally needs editing" before it reaches the public. Though it made no effort to explain the absence of live U.N. pickups, NBC detailed the amount of TV coverage given the Middle East crisis on spot news slots--43 minutes, 15 seconds--which Gould pooh-poohed: "When vital history was being made, NBC video was fascinated by Queen for a Day in Hollywood."

Gobs of Dough. CBS issued no public statement, but a network spokesman admitted: "We were all wrong." CBS News Chief Sig Michaelson disagreed: "News coverage is a matter of editorial judgment. The big story was elsewhere. Besides, public interest in a U.N. session is small."

Even so, by the time the General Assembly called the first emergency special session in its eleven-year history, it was clear that the Times's caustic judgment had roweled both NBC and CBS into at least limited action (ABC pre-empted only one half-hour show the entire evening). The national chains carried spotty U.N. pickups all evening, but when Secretary Dulles appealed to the world for support, ABC was preoccupied with The Lone Ranger, NBC with Guy Lombardo and CBS with Sergeant Preston of the Yukon. (But CBS did carry the late session until closing.) And for the most part, both of the nation's biggest networks, which each week toss around gobs of sponsor dough with reckless abandon, carried the U.N. during cheap, second-rate time slots when their affiliates across the country were not contract-bound to carry the programs.

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