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About La Grande observer. (La Grande, Or.) 1959-1968 | View Entire Issue (Nov. 25, 1959)
"Give Us the Facts Now . 1 -mm"m 1 ' " rptesy liSf EDITORIAL PAGE LA GRANDE OBSERVER Wednesday, November 25, 1959 "Without or with friend or foe, we print your daily world as It goes" Byron. RILEY ALLEN, publisher Grady Pannell, managing editor George Challis, advertising director Tom Humes, circulation manager A Teacher With Imagination A man named Melvin Willet. a teacher of history and current affairs at a hijfh school in FYeehold, N.J., became upset recently after discussing the television iuiz scandals with some of his classes. The students, almost without exception, argued there was nothing wrong with the shows. Their line of reasoning was: . "Since there's nothing illegal about cheating in quiz shows, there's nothing wrong." Willett disagreed. And, lieing a man with some imagination, he figured out a way to demonstrate his point. At the next meeting of each of his three classes he announced a quiz. This one, he said, would count as a major part of the semester's grade, lie asked the class to supread out even had three of his studunts sit at his desk. Then he started giving a tough current affairs test, verbally. As he asked each question he wrote the answer on a paper in front of him. Then he asked the students to trade pajers while the correct answers were read. The papers were graded. The class average in each of the three classes was about 1" correct answers for the 20 questions. Willett asked, lint, in each class, the students seated at his desk" got all 20 answers right. It was obvious they had taken down the answers as Willett put them down oii his master copy. The Vest of the students in the class put up a squawk. It wasn't fair, they, said. Willett said there was no law against looking at th answers on the teacher's desk. It might not be fair according to the students, but he could see nothing wrong with it. ' To make a long story short, the stu dents at the New Jersey high school have some realization of the ethics in volved. And nine of their number have nice pink faces, the kind one gets from a sunburn or a blush. You Bet, It Was An Honest Mistake A bank clerk at Ilolyoke, Mass., hit the wrong keys on the machine that stamps checks and the amount came out $4,000,022.75 when it should have been $22.75. The bank fired the clerk and the woman to whom the check was issued says she won't give the check back to the bank unless the clerk is re-hired. She claims it was an honest mistake. We are ready, to rush into print with applause for this stand because a news paper, certainly, knows all about honest mistakes. Kvery issue of a newspaper contains thousands of letters and figures. Each one represents someone's finger hitting a key at least tw ice once on a typewriter and once on a typesetting machine. The chances for error are tremendous. Woe to us when the adver tiser calls after the paper is out and says the price in his ad should have been I! cents a dozen instead of -18 cents, or vice versa. Or if the high school scholar ship is awarded to John Jones, 81, when he is only 18. Hoiiest mistakes? The world is full of them too full. Just nsk any internal revenue agent. An appalling number of income tax returns have errors in simple arithmetic. It is only coincidence, of course, that nearly all favor the taxpayer. 'Payola -Synonym For A new word is making a strong bid for inclusion in the ever-changing Knglish language. It is "payola." The word received headline mention earlier this week when a Kew York disc jockey said he qiiit a $60,000 a year radio job in Detroit, Mich., because of inces sant commercials, subservience to ratings and pressure of "payola." The disc jockey is Ed McKenzie, for merly of Detroit Station WXYZ. He de scribed "payola" as "offering disc jockeys cash to play records they wouldn't ordinarily play." McKenzie noted his plight in the cur rent issue of Life Magazine : "Because of the charts that are put together by numbers of music trade publishers that rate the popularity of records, I had to play music on my pro gram that I would never have played otherwise. And the charts are phony bocause of the most disgusting part of Bribery the radio industry payola." McKenzie said he was frequently ap proached by small companies having trouble getting their stuff on the air. The companies would offer $100 for a .one week "ride" of a certain record. That called for playing of the record several times a day. Tlie evjockey of the discs said some jockeys in the metropolitan areas, are on the weekly payroll of from four to five companies. 'ay apparently is not the only Incen tive to guarantee repeat playings of certain records. Frequently song plun gers or publishers come to the big towns and take jockeys out for dinners. The sky is the limit on entertainment, McKenzie said drinks, girls, everything. the American picture, "payola" at present is directly hooked to the radio industry. Hut it reaches into other fields. Under different names, it has been dis cussed and criticized in the past. DREW PEARSON SAYS. Senate Group Investigates Rigging Of Video Ratings WASHINGTON While the spotlight has been on rigged uui shows, a Senate committee has been quietly investigating whether television ratings are aj. so rigged. These are the mathematical tabulations which are supposed tn show what the public watches on television. Accepted as scripture on Madison Avenue, these magic statistics largely determine whe ther a TV show will be scrapped or sought by sponsors. The Senate Commerce commit tee has found that some televi sion stations schedule more pop ular shows and run big promo tion campaigns during the period the ratings are taken. This is a form of ballot-box stuffing which Itracts more viewers while their viewing habits are being tabu lated. Some senators are skeptical whether the ratings accurately re flect the public's television tastes nyway. ror example, the A. C. Nielsen survey monitors only i . 050 TV sets to determine what programs the nation's 43,000,000 sets are tuned to. The Nielsen poll takers don't even bother to check on a single set in the entire Itocky Mountain time zone. Attached to the 1,050 selected sets, special electronic gadgets faithfully record every turn of the television dial. The gadgets cannot measure, however, who may be watching the sets. A spot check by another company re vealed that 36 per cent of the sets luned in during the daytime wcren t being watched at all. Sponsor May Cancel Yet the electronic returns from the 1,050 sets may make or break a television program. The trict, stark ratings figures are studied by the advertisting agen cies to determine whether the advertising messages are getting across. If too few of the 1,050 sets are tuned to a particular show, the sponsors may cancel out. Here are some TV shows which the senators learned were ruined by poor ratings: 1. The Geoffrey Wade agency dropped the Robert Q. Lewis show and the day time serial "from These Roots" because of unsatisfactory ratings. Explained the agency in a confidential re port to the Senate committee: If the average television family has an adequate number of choi ces from which to make their se lection, we must follow the dem ocratic assumption that the best program Is the one most people want.' 2. The Parkinson Advertisng agency acknowledged to the com mittee: "This agency recom mended the cancellation of the program 'What's it For?' in the 10 p.m. Saturday night time period on NBC. This was a panel type quiz program which was not able Mo secure a large enough audience as indicated by its ratings against the program on CBS telecast at the same time, 'Gunsmoke.'" 3. Sullivan, Stauffer, Colwell. and Bayles replaced the corned) show "Stanley," starring Buddy Ilackctt, with a western called "ales of Wells Fargo." The "Stanley" show was preferred by the critics, but the horse opera received higher ratings. 4. Foote, Cone and Belding re ported to the committee: "By ne gotiation with CBS-TV, we moved a client out of the Patti Page program into the Perry Mason show because of the low rating of the former and the high rating of the latter. This resulted in the Patti Page show being re duced from one hour to 30 min utes and later leaving the CBS network." "Twonty-Ono" Shifted 5. The senators learned that the quiz show "Twenty-One,'1 on which Charles Van Dorcn sky rocketed to fame, was moved bv NBC from Monday night to Thurs day night after the ratings be gan to slip. 6 t'ompton Advertising confi ded that occasionally it "recom n'ended the discontinuation of a program because its rating was low'' and cited as examples "Jane Wymun's Fireside Theater," "The Seeking Heart," and "Today Is Ours" all TV soap operas. 7. Young and Rubicam, one of the giants of the advertising business, acknowledged that poor ratings played a part in the sub stituiion of "Playhouse 90" for Four-Star Playhouse" and The Johnnv Carson Show" on the CBS-TV network. 8. A dozen other advertising agencies admitted scuttling low rating shows. Among those that got the ax were "Stage Show," Panic," "Noah's Ark," 'Sally,' Original Amateur Hour." and ' Extrasensory Perception." One dissenting report came to the Senate committee from Ful ler, Smith and Ross which point ed out: "One of our very big clients sponsored Edward R. Mur- row's 'See it Now' program for three consecutive years despite the fact that said program nev er won what would be considered as a good rating." With few exceptions, the ad vertising agencies admitted in their confidential reports that some television stations try to boost their ratings by rigging the program schedule. Loaded Programs "It has been proved by the au dience Research Bureau," wrote William B. Templeton, radio-TV agency, "that certain stations do "load' the program week with promotion or with better feature films and that there is an effect upon the ratings." James S. Bealle, reporting for the Kenyon and Eckhardt agency agreed: "We have seen instances where promotions or special programming have resulted in above average ratings." "It is quite possible," added E. L. Deckinger for the Grey Advertising agency, "that insuf- ticitnt weight is given to the fact that some of these ratings are obtained under 'unnatural' circumstances." From Keyes, Madden and Jones came this blunt observation: "As lonj as television is sponsored, L' - . M :v V-:i Ffr '- Jt -.-a i. ..v." 'A 0N0O RUANDA URUNDI Cost Of Living Hits Record Ail-Time High For October WASHINGTON (L'PI Living costs climbed to an all-time peak in October, the government re ported today. The Labor Department said its consumer price index rose two tenths of 1 per cent last month to 125.5 per cent of average 1947 49 prices. It was the sixth in crease in the last seven months. As a result, an estimated 1. 250,000 workers in the auto, farm equipment, aircraft and electrical the businessman has the right (actually the fiscal duty) to ana lyze a program in order to see whether it is an economically sound buy for the company. Rat ing services are the best means so far of providing this informa tion. The sponsor is not obligated to carry a show which has limit ed appeal unless he wants to change his role from that of en trepreneur to' that of patron of the arts." Meanwhile, the ratings contiue to determine what the public sees on television. The result, sena tors complain privately, is a rash of horse operas which continue to get ever higher ratings as there are fewer other shows to choose from. idustries will get penny-an-bour nav boosts. i't. Prices of every major group of j !!i:ls and services except I'm went up in uctoDer. . yr Impact of SimL Strikt "J About three-fourths of the nvl crease was attributed to the im pact of new 10 cars and a one- cent a gallon rise in the federal tax on gasoline. i Ewan Clague, commissioner of luixir statistics, predicted further future increases in steel rrmJ items because of the scarcity, oi the basic metal to the steel strike. Clague explained that dealers do not give discounts on 1960 mod els as they have done for several months on 1959 cars. This causes the index to rise, he said. Transportation prices went up 1.4 per cent from September to October. Rents showed the biggest monthly change in two years to push up housing costs by three tenths of 1 per cent. Clothing prices rose to their highest point in 30 years because of the' higher costs of women's dresses, coats, suits and shoes. Buying Powor Doclino . Clague said housewives paid less for pork, eggs, fresh fruits and END OF WATUSIS? Charles Mutura Rhuda higwa, left, is a Watusi, a member of the fam.i African tribe of seven footers who are engaged in a battle of survival . with their subjects of three centuries, the Ba nutus. Sporadic but sav age battles between the 300,000 Watusis and the four million Bahutus have been scattered all over vast Ruanda-Urundi (see Newsmap, above). Hundreds have been killed. poultry lust month. Nearly every kind of meat except chuck roast was cheaper and the meat group showed a 5 per cent decline in price from Sep! ember. The Octolier index was 1.5 per cent higher than the same month last year. Both the take home pay and buying power of the aVerage fac tory worker dropped last month. The earnings after federal taxes of a worker with three dependents fell by 30 cents to $80 03 a week. This drop, together' with the rise n .ilin the index, reduced buying pow er by six-tenths of 1 per cent. The Bureau of Labor Statistics ,said the decline in earnings and buying power was caused mainly by the steel strike. Since steel workers' pay is higher than that of the average manufacturing worker, average earnings have dropped below the"pre-strike level. The workers who will get pay raises are covered by labor con tracts with escalator clauses gear ing their wages to changes in the index. About 68,000 workers in Lock heed and Allis-Chalmers plants will get two cent hourly raises because the index has been rising in the past three months. REMEMBER WHEN ... 25 years ago, the La Grande Elks manned nl.ms for their nual child welfare Droeram tw ceeds derived from the "Days o( 49." sponsored by the Elks, were expected to make the drive a big success. The VP Railroad donated its emergency hospital building, not being used, to the Neighborhood Club. Mrs. H. G. Avery, cluh president, led an insnectinn t. through the building. The Eagles here planned a Yuletide tree for all children of their organization. ... 15 years ago, the armed might of the U.S. stood at 11. 859.000 men and women, with 8. 000.000 men and women serving in the Army. Almost 190.000 wo men were members of the armed service. A total of 4.500.000 men had been rejected for either phj. steal or mental deficiencies. Cove set another war loan rec. ord in Union County by doubling its quota of $17,000 to lead all county communities. R. W Schaad was rural committee chairman for the drive. U S. Superforts hit Tokvo in giant air raid, the first since the tamed Doolittle bombing on April lo, V.HZ. p ' ' ' " A I Hearty, healthy laughter! One of life's joys is hers again rafter months of crippling emotional tensions. A better understanding of mental i health by more of us can give the hope of recovery to so many others. Almost a tenth of America's population more than 16,000,000 people suffers from 'some form of emotional disturbance or mental illness. Naturally, every public-spirited citizen 'is con cerned about the magnitude of this problem. Yet, all too few realize how much they can offer in dealing with it in their own communities. You yourself can extend the most precious gift of all undtrttanding. Only as your help and understand- ing grow can the emotionally disturbed have hope ; of recovery of leading normal, useful lives. i And it is important to remember, if emotional or mental illness should touch any member of your ; family, there is no reason why you shouldn't dis- ,' cuss the problem, face it as you would any physical ' illness. Find out how to deal with it, how it can be treated. And above all, work as closely as possible , with your local mental health association. r TVll' FREE BOOKLET: For a better undtrttandinf of mental health, send for a copy of: "How to Deal Witb Vou Tensions,'! written by top txparts In the field of psychiatry. i Addrws: letter Mental Hoahh, Box 2500, Now York 1, N. Y. LA GRANDE OBSERVER 0L