Standards Double When Controversy Strikes : Television: Local and national stations are refusing to carry an ad taking a stand on military aid to El Salvador. Propaganda for toothpaste, however, is just fine with them.

Should the public airwaves encourage ideas or ignorance?

If you opt for ignorance, you’re probably applauding the decision by commercial TV stations in Los Angeles--and elsewhere across the nation--to veto a paid commercial taking a strong stand on United States military aid to El Salvador.

If you favor ideas, you’re probably repulsed by the decision. And rightfully so.

Their refusal is a commercial for cowardice.

Whether the commercial favors or opposes U.S. military aid to El Salvador is unimportant here, compared with the principle of free expression, whose spirit is violated by rejection of the commercial.

Let’s get down to specifics.

Do you believe there should be room on the air for a visually graphic, strongly worded commercial advocating continued U.S. military aid for El Salvador? You’re a smart person, of course you do.

If so, however, you also must support air time for the 30-second spot that was widely rejected. Using powerful imagery, it urges an end to U.S. aid to El Salvador.

Narrated by actor David Clennon of “thirtysomething,” the spot shows blood spreading across a U.S. check for Salvadoran aid, intercut with the sound of gunfire and photos of four of six Jesuit priests and one of two females who were murdered last year at Central American University in San Salvador. The final picture is one of the murder scene, with bodies on the ground.

Although the murders made global headlines, the murderers have not been brought to justice.

The commercial’s message is clear:

U.S. aid and tax dollars are linked to these slayings and to the slayings of countless other innocent civilians attributed to the murderous Salvadoran military over the years. Hence, U.S. citizens are subsidizing murder.

There is a standard political strategy at work here. Produced by a coalition of organizations, including Neighbor to Neighbor and the Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador (CISPES), the spot is timed to coincide with an upcoming Senate vote on a proposed 50% cut in an $85-million military appropriation to El Salvador.

Under the measure being considered, the full amount would be suspended under certain conditions, including the Salvadoran government’s failure to prosecute the murderers of the Jesuits or refusal to negotiate with the rebels of the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN). However, the full $85 million would be restored if the FMLN refuses to negotiate or initiates an offensive.

In the commercial, Clennon calls on viewers to urge their senators: “Vote no on aid to El Salvador.” In the California version, the name and address of Sen. Pete Wilson--who is opposed to the 50% cut--is superimposed on the screen.

Most of the stations approached to run the commercial nationally have rejected it. Among the 13 that have accepted it unconditionally is ABC affiliate KGTV-TV in San Diego. “We put it in front of our management team and decided it’s an opinion that deserves to be broadcast,” Program Director Don Lundy said. “And we would broadcast the other side of the issue also.”

Said John Kueneke, general manager of NBC affiliate KCRA in Sacramento, which also is running the spot, “We don’t shy away from issue advertising or controversial issues.”

It should be just that clear cut. But it isn’t.

In Los Angeles, only KTLA Channel 5 had not yet responded to CISPES about accepting the commercial as of press time Tuesday. KABC Channel 7, KCBS Channel 2, KNBC Channel 4, KTTV Channel 11 and KCOP Channel 13 have turned it down.

According to local CISPES coordinator Catherine Suitor, KCAL Channel 9 has agreed to run the spot on the condition that the last scene--with the corpses--is deleted. “It’s the same picture that was on the news for two weeks,” noted Suitor, who added that omitting the scene at this late stage was impractical.

Meanwhile, if ever there were a metaphor for TV’s cowering, quivering timidity when faced with the prospect of offending some viewers, it’s contained in KABC’s statement that it rejected the commercial because, except for political spots, it accepts no advertising that “takes a stand on a controversial issue.”

Commercials can propagandize about the joys of using the right toothpaste but not about an issue of vital importance to the United States? That’s outrageous.

The KABC statement is also the model of the station’s inconsistency, for it has news commentators from both right and left (in Bruce Herschensohn and Gloria Allred) who make a point of tackling controversy.

Double standard is the operative term here.

The commercial is rejected by KTTV as being somehow “improper”? This from a Fox station that ran an episode of “In Living Color” Sunday that included a simulation of a man’s penis in a sketch about a family called the Buttmans?

The commercial is rejected by KCOP because of its “violent and graphic visuals”? This from the Los Angeles outlet of Freddy Krueger mania?

And so on and so on. This concern about the content of commercials is really, really inspiring. But. . . .

Where is all the concern about “infomercials,” those mostly deceptive, program-length commercials that deliver big dollars to stations while advocating a spate of products that are often far more questionable than anything in the El Salvador ad?

Where is all the concern about the unlabeled commercials for books, movies and TV programs that consume nearly every talk show?

Where is all the concern about the program-length toy commercials that pass for kids’ shows?

Where was all the concern when the infamous Willie Horton image became the ugly racist message in commercials for George Bush during the last presidential campaign?

Most of TV is notoriously timid when it comes to controversy that it perceives as not being mainstream. Thus, the networks have stubbornly resisted running condom ads even as they run prime-time programs that use sex gratuitously to titillate viewers.

And now once again, in TV’s universe of hypocrisy and self-interest, fear is the victor and public interest the victim.