Bilingual Public Service

Los Angeles television station KNBC, Channel 4, is using a unique approach in broadcasting a series of special reports this week and next on its evening news show--using Spanish as well as English to reach viewers. Unfortunately, some members of the station’s English-speaking audience are reacting negatively to this well-intentioned experiment.

The series, “Out of the Shadows: Legal at Last,” focuses on the complex and controversial Immigration Reform Act of 1986, which will begin taking legal effect over the next several months. Because most of the people who will feel the effects of that law in Southern California are illegal immigrants from Latin America, KNBC executives decided that news anchor Linda Alvarez should narrate the series in both English and Spanish. The approach is being handled smoothly and carefully. When one language is used, subtitles translating what is being said flash across the bottom of the screen.

The series has drawn favorable comment from representatives of many of the social-service and religious agencies that assist immigrants, but KNBC spokesman have been both surprised and disappointed at the volume of negative telephone calls that the station is getting from angry viewers who are offended by the use of Spanish on an English-language television station.

The critics are taking a shortsighted and even uncharitable attitude. The use of Spanish in the series is not an attempt to subvert the English language (which is as strong and healthy as it has ever been, both here and around the world) but an attempt to reach out to a large audience that needs information about an important subject and might otherwise might not have access to it. Whatever else can be said about the new immigration law, its provisions for legalizing persons who are now living here illegally will help many otherwise honest and law-abiding people emerge from a legal limbo. KNBC’s effort is not just admirable but also worth emulating when other broadcast outlets deal with issues that affect language minorities.