HIGHER STANDARD

Letter writer Frederick Singer accuses me of calling for government intervention to require local public affairs programming (Letters, April 5). I never intended to make that demand. But, since the FCC lacks any such authority, Singer can rest comfortably in willful ignorance of his civic opportunities.

Others, however, are innocently uninformed because so many broadcasters refuse to meet the challenge of making interesting what even Singer might recognize as important.

The argument that listeners don’t care about what they’re not being told in the first place is specious and a mockery of the license to use the airwaves. Of course, the answer is not to mandate programs that nobody wants to hear. But neither is abandoning the idea of “public service,” which is a worthy goal and--despite the difficulties and contradictions involved--a standard to which broadcasters ought to be held in exchange for the privilege of profiting from the use of public assets.

WARREN OLNEY

Host, “Which Way, L.A.?”

KCRW-FM, Santa Monica