Mediator in Middle

    The smoldering dispute between newspapermen and TV reporters over coverage of interviews almost broke out again this week at the press conference for labor Secretary James M. Mitchell.  Newspapermen contend subjects freeze when they see the cameras and are not as relaxed and responsive as they would be without them.  They prefer separate sessions, either before or after the cameramen have had theirs.  TV men insist on combined sessions and have walked out on Nelson Rockefeller and Gov. Brown, who don't.

    When the cameras moved in on Mitchell, who was aware of the clash, he quipped, "I'll be glad to offer my services as a federal mediator in this dispute — at my usual fee of $100 a day."

    It wasn't necessary.  The paper boys had a new strategy — the silent treatment.  They just sat there.  Usually they ask most of the intelligent questions and the TV men make the most of the answers.

     Finally one TV man asked, "Are you fellows going to ask any questions?"

    "Go ahead," a newspaperman replied, "get your show on the road."

    Afterward the paper boys held an exclusive press conference with Mitchell in another room.

    EASILY THE most casual robber of the week was the young man who came into the Jill and Jean cafe at 311 S. Spring St. around 4 p.m.  Wednesday and ordered a cup of coffee.  As he sipped it he asked the waitress if she had a paper sack.  She said no, so he went out and got one from the newsboy at the corner.  He returned, had another cup of coffee, then went into the back of the place.  He handed Jim, the cook, a note stating, "This is a stickup" and marched him up front and instructed him to put the money from the cash register in the paper bag.  Apparently he had a gun concealed in his pocket.  He escaped with $120.

   HOE DOWN
Seed catalogues excite me!
Such bursts of gorgeous
    color!
Gardens of my friends
    delight me;
Digging mine is duller.
        MARGARET MAHAN

    A POSSIBLE explanation of the collapse of the L.A. Rams last season comes from Charles W. Lomas of UCLA's English department.  It is contained in an article in the university bulletin stating that two veterinary scientists at Davis have been given a $60,500 grant to make a three-year study of epididymitis, a disease of rams.  The article goes on, "California rams are already hard hit.  Of 10,000 rams examined, 25% were infected."

    So that's what it was, epididymitis — not fumbleitis.

    THE OTHER DAY just before rehearsal for Bob Hope's Feb. 23 TV show, Onnie Whizin Morrow got on an elevator at NBC in Burbank with a load of scripts for the participants.  A dignified, gray-haired man, the only other passenger, offered to help her, and she gratefully handed them to him.  As they got out and marched along the corridor several persons exchanged greetings with him.

    "You seem well acquainted here," she said.  "Whom do I have to thank for helping me?"

    "Just thank your ex-governor," the ubiquitous Goodie Knight said.

    FOOTNOTES — A special showing of "The Snow Queen" will be held Monday morning at the Fox Wilshire Theater and studio people are hoping for sunshine — so they can have a load of snow on hand for the youngsters.  It will be the synthetic kind, made by the machine that makes the fluffy stuff out of ice.  But rain would spoil everything . . . Evan Thomas nominates as the best of the saloon signs that one over Hussong's cantina in Ensenada: "If you drink to forget, please pay before drinking" . . . Harmon J. Purvin nominates as the jerk of the month whoever stole two containers from the Junior Bootery in Lynwood, one containing money for the March of Dimes, the other for the City of Hope.