Ballot Issues? Local TV Can’t Find the Time

A coalition of civic, religious and business groups has been trying to get local TV stations to agree to set aside 10 minutes out of each news hour to cover the ballot issues that will be voted on just four weeks from now. For the most part, the TV Campaign ’96 Coalition has run into a stone wall.

Only the area’s two Spanish language stations, KMEX-TV Channel 34 and KVEA-TV Channel 52, say they are providing the kind of coverage on state and local measures that the coalition seeks. News directors of the seven commercial English-language TV stations have equivocated or flatly turned down the coalition’s proposal. Apparently they feel that their civic responsibility does not include trying to help inform the community about billions of dollars in bond measures and other ballot propositions of compelling social and economic importance to this area’s future.

Television broadcasts--over public airwaves, lest it be forgotten--are now cited by many Americans as their primary source of news. That fact by itself ought to encourage a greater commitment by the TV stations to do more to inform viewers about the complex issues they will face on Nov. 5. If such a commitment exists, it remains well hidden. Even with a major election approaching, Los Angeles TV stations seem determined to base their local news broadcasts on the usual ratings-driven daily file of crime stories, car crashes, sex scandals and inflated health scares. Titillation has become all but synonymous with information. The refusal to give anything but the most cursory notice to serious issues of the day mocks the notion of public service.

The TV Campaign ’96 Coalition is not a fringe group of civic pests asking for the unattainable. Representing more than a score of organizations and interests, the coalition spans the political spectrum. Included in its ranks are Town Hall Los Angeles and the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Assn., the Urban League and Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce, UTLA, the American Jewish Committee, the Junior League of Los Angeles, the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund. What brings them together is a profound concern that local television news is in the main doing a pathetically inadequate job in covering the coming election’s ballot measures. Anyone who doubts that hasn’t turned on the TV lately.