A Beady Eye

Watching the continuing story of rigged quizzes and widespread payola roll off the presses in the past year, many radio and television spokesmen tended to criticize the newspapers for printing the news rather than blame their own industry for making it. Last week, with the chip on his shoulder showing, a Columbia Broadcasting System executive announced that his network plans to turn a beady eye on the press.

At an Advertising Federation of America convention in Lincoln, Neb., Merle S. Jones, president of CBS Television Stations Division, said television "is being attacked systematically, casually, directly and indirectly from every quarter. The public is being constantly reminded of our alleged sins in the daily press throughout the land, and significantly the stories are moving to the front pages and the editorial page. Heaven knows, television stations, their programs, their operating policies and their procedures are being quite thoroughly reviewed and previewed by the press."

To counter this criticism, said Jones, CBS will shortly start weekly programs on its five wholly owned TV stations reviewing and "critiquing" the press. "We do not plan to indulge in sophomoric criticism of competing media," he said. "But we do think it might be interesting to review from time to time such things as the placement and juxtaposition of news items. For example, we might want to make some observations regarding the size of type, the headline and front-page position given by some newspapers over the past two or three months to the affairs of Dr. Finch and Carole Tregoff. We might want to make some comment as to whether or not the really important world and community interest stories are being positioned in 'prime time' in the daily paper."

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