Television: Airing Opinion

U.S. TV and radio stations, long too timid to editorialize, are beginning to air their own opinions on public issues. At a broadcasters' conference sponsored in Baltimore last week by the Westinghouse Broadcasting Company, it was estimated that a third of the nation's stations have begun editorializing, mostly within the last 18 months. Items:

¶ San Francisco's KPIX pioneered a campaign for a rapid-transit system in the bay area, plugged it with helicopter shots of traffic jams, views of a comfortable, studio-built commuter-train interior, even bought radio time to catch the ear of harassed motorists.

¶ In Cincinnati, when local newspapers ignored a smear campaign against a Negro running for re-election to the city council, radio station WSAI raised its voice to chastise both the whisperers and the silent press. The one-shot unscheduled broadcast did not put Candidate Theodore Berry back into office, reported a WSAI spokesman, but it brought more than 1,000 letters and phone calls, mostly approving, and goaded the newspapers into a defense of their silence.

¶ In Miami, after airing 114 editorials on a newscast since last September, WTVJ happily watched the show's rating more than double. The editorials covered such subjects as obscene literature, pay TV, security at Cape Canaveral. WTVJ and many of its fellow editorializers try to follow these rules: beat the press to the draw, stick to local issues, curb negative blasting in favor of constructive suggestions.