"NUTRITIONAL FLASH--Marian Burros， NBC s foe of<br > junk food， has been offered five figures by a baking<br > industry lobbyist to pose with a Hostess Twinkle. Strictly<br > platonic， Ear s sure， but is impressed anyway.~<br > That June， 1978， item in the Washington Star s gossip<br > column "Ear" vividly demonstrates that the life of a food<br > writer and consumer reporter in the last half of the<br > twentieth century is never boring. In addition to the<br > Hostess Twinkle offer， I was threatened with a lawsuit for<br > defamation of character by a leading supermarket chain，<br > which also cancelled its advertising for a while at the<br > television station where I worked， and the station，<br > NBC s WRC-TV， could have been slapped with a<br >$10，000 fine because I suggested that viewers might<br >want to call a chairman of a Congressional committee to<br >register a complaint. *<br > I didn t pose.<br > They didn t sue.<br >~ An FCC poliey prohibits any broadcaster from telling radio or televi-<br >sion listeners to call another person. The rule is based on a number of<br >incidents where a talk-show host or a disc jockey has exhorted listeners<br >to call Someone， sometimes even giving out the person s private<br >number. Since 1 didn t give out a number and the person is a public<br >servant whose salary and phone bills are paid for by the taxpayers， the<br >situation didn t seem analogous.<br >