TELEVISION: The News That's Fit to Tape

This may be remembered as the TV season when public-affairs programs, as they are primly called, began to come into their own. While they cannot possibly match the concern a network lavishes on a profitable husband-and-wife comedy, they have made some impressive strides into prime evening time. Spurred equally by the guilt feelings left over from the quiz frauds and by interest in the political campaign, the networks are putting more information programs on the air than ever before. If the 1960 campaign seems to have been less fustian than others in the past, TV's exacting eye and ear deserve much of the credit.

Apart from The Great Debate, which despite shortcomings stayed consistently exciting, other shows, such as NBC's Meet the Press and CBS's Face the Nation and Presidential Countdown, have kept the candidates steaming under glass. Always at their best when covering events as they actually happen, the networks' cameras were brilliantly active during the U.N.'s recent parliament of fouls, picking up everything from Mr. K's desk pounding to Fidel Castro bearding pedestrians outside his Harlem hotel.

But the real test of TV as a news medium is whether it can organize and analyze events. In that field, the most notable effort so far this year is being made by a former college instructor and science researcher who bears the improbable title of Executive Producer, Creative Projects, NBC News and Public Affairs. A cigar-smoking, rumpled, un-Brooks Brotherly type, Irving Gitlin, 42, jumped networks last May after being instrumental (as CBS's Director of Public Affairs) in the development of Twentieth Century, Face the Nation, Conquest and other first-rate shows. "CBS is a mature situation," says Gitlin. "NBC is ripening." Translation: having lagged far behind CBS in information coverage for years, NBC is using Gitlin to try to close the gap. Among Gitlin's projects:

The NBC White Paper Series. Six hour-long reports on topics ranging from American flacks to U.S. problems with the Panama Canal. The series begins next month with a study of the Government's handling of the U-2 program.

The Nation's Future. A weekly, hour-long series of debates. Gitlin started by making a list of 50 "impossible" opponents, e.g., Ben-Gurion and Nasser, is still trying to line up as many as possible. The first, hardly sensational encounter, on Nov. 12, joins Atomic Scientists Edward Teller and Leo Szilard on disarmament.

Purex Specials. A daytime series intended mainly for women—although the first program interested a nearly equal number of men. Called The Cold Woman, it dealt with sexual frigidity in the human female, effectively balanced four acts of slightly soapy dramatization with clinical commentary by a psychiatrist and a psychologist.

Outside Gitlin's domain is one of NBC's greatest assets this year: Robert Saudek's memorable Omnibus, which, after a season off the air and years of scuttling back and forth between networks, resumes on NBC next month. The first show studies the various ways in which U.S. Presidents have used their power.