Fairness Doctrine Applies in School Board Race : Campaign Obliges Weintraub to Suspend TV Career

Los Angeles school board member Roberta Weintraub has turned in her clip-on microphone and put her television career on hold for a while because of the Federal Communication Commission’s fairness doctrine.

The 35-year-old fairness regulation requires that radio and television stations provide equal time to all political candidates and opposing viewpoints on controversial issues. Because Weintraub, host of the Sunday night public affairs program “School Beat,” is running for reelection to the Los Angeles Unified School District Board of Education, she can no longer appear on the program without other candidates’ receiving equal time.

“Once a person becomes qualified for the ballot, any appearance that does not fall into exempted news categories immediately triggers the equal-time law,” said Milt Gross, chief of the Federal Communication Commission’s political broadcast division.

He said that, if Weintraub “appeared as a subject of news-type interview, or were involved in a story on a news broadcast, there would be no problem. But being the host of a talk show is totally different.”

Weintraub has been the host the weekly, 30-minute program on education-related subjects since it began two years. According to Walt Baker, program director for KHJ-TV, the show garners a Nielsen rating of 2 with an audience share of 5--meaning that on an average Sunday night about 88,700 Los Angeles households are watching.

“Those are pretty respectable numbers,” Baker said. “It isn’t ‘Dallas,’ but it isn’t bad for a public affairs show that airs at 9:30 p.m. on a Sunday night.”

Weintraub is philosophical about being forced to take a leave of absence from the program.

“I think the equal time regulation is reasonable, and I have no problem with having to leave the show,” Weintraub said, adding that her appearance on the show last Sunday was her last until the election for her East Valley school board seat is decided.

Because the official deadline for candidates to file for the race is not until Feb. 2, “I could have gone on the air one more week,” she said, adding that she stepped aside earlier “in the interest of prudent behavior.”

Potential Weintraub opponents, ones who have picked up declarations of intention to run in the April 9 primary, are Mary Louise Longoria, an Arleta resident and consultant for the county Human Relations Commission; Gary Lipton, a counselor at Francis Polytechnic High School in Sun Valley and chairman of the San Fernando Valley Nuclear Freeze Committee; Albert Dib, an Arleta businessman, and G.C. (Brodie) Broderson, the student representative on the board of trustees of the Los Angeles Community College District.

Weintraub is not the only candidate in this year’s municipal election who has had to put a television career on the back burner.

City attorney candidate Lisa Specht, a lawyer with the politically influential firm of Manatt, Phelps, Rothenberg & Tunney, has stepped down as legal affairs commentator for KABC-TV for the duration of the campaign.

In 1969, television news anchorman Baxter Ward had to resign from the KABC news department so he could run for mayor of Los Angeles. Ward was unsuccessful in his bid and returned to television news as news director and anchor for KHJ-TV. Ward resigned the KHJ position in 1972, however, after he waged a successful campaign for a seat on the Board of Supervisors.

During Weintraub’s absence from “School Beat,” a series of guest hosts will be featured, according to Weintraub. The hosts will include Harry Handler, superintendent of the Los Angeles Unified School District; Bill Honig, state superintendent of public instruction; Arthur Laffer, former USC professor, Reagan Administration adviser and architect of supply-side economic theory; and Darryl Gates, Los Angeles police chief.