L.A. Loses a Strong Voice

The angriest voice in Los Angeles television was cut off yesterday. Bill Stout, 62, the man who hectored generals in Vietnam and sycophants in City Hall, died of cardiac arrest.

All TV news people read. Stout could also write. And ask hard questions. He learned his journalism at UCLA in the days before reporters and anchors were supposed to be beautiful, handsome or at least avuncular. Stout’s strength was to grow up skeptical and intellectual; he understood war, politics and the petty lies people tell each other. On screen, he was sarcastic. Off screen, he could be sardonic. Funny, too.

He cocked his eyebrow at the audience and told his version of the whole story. Station managers and sponsors didn’t always like whole stories because executives also tend to live with petty lies and half-told truths. So Stout moved around in his 40-year broadcasting career, from network to independent channel and back to network again. For the last few years he has been the news conscience of KCBS-TV, doing a commentary called “Perspective,” spouting truth, spewing opinion and making clear which was which.

Stout and his spouse, Peggy, were news junkies, the first ones on the block to have a computer that could talk to other computers, the first to have a wire service clacking in the family room.

Two years ago he had a heart attack. He came back on screen looking older, balder, more tired but no less furious about the wayward ways of public life. His was a voice suitable for judgment day, and some days in the ‘60s and ‘70s Stout seemed to be speaking for the national character--or lack of it. From one medium to another, we thank you, Bill. You were so often right.