(FORTUNE Magazine) – We see by the papers that New Proprietor Larry Tisch is determined to preserve the integrity of CBS News and would definitely not allow bottom lineism to become a factor in deciding what the newsmen cast out onto the airwaves. However, the argument about profits vs. journalistic integrity at CBS News is getting to seem like a bit of a red herring. The present tubewatcher has just submitted to a whole week's worth of the fellows' output, give or take a few times when the VCR timer was improperly set or arguably tampered with by household members it would be fruitless to accuse without more evidence. And coming off this grueling experience, he wishes that Larry would lay off the palaver about integrity at the aforementioned enterprise and focus for a while on certain questions that never seem to get asked in all the soul-searching at Black Rock. Question: How come CBS News cannot think straight? Why is it such a sucker for squishy-soft liberal formulations? Why is it so dumb so often? Does Andy Rooney of 60 Minutes really think it doesn't matter if Soviet intelligence listens to U.S. Navy communications? (''What was the Navy saying that was so secret?'' Andy asked derisively. ''They planning to attack Moscow or something?'') How could Mr. Avuncular, Walter Cronkite, do a report on Communist economies and persistently confuse the existing East Bloc system with the ultimate goal established in the Communist Manifesto? (He kept talking as though Eastern economies were now governed by the rule ''From each according to his abilities -- to each according to his needs.'') For that matter, how could he believe that Czech workers now have, as he reported, a ''socialist right'' to work shorter hours than the state tells them to? How could Charlie Rose on the CBS Morning News call the investment tax credit a ''deduction''? How could Dan Rather do three separate reports on the row about the Japanese Prime Minister, who said that average intelligence in the U.S. was being dragged down by certain minorities, and not address the question of whether Nakasone was factually correct (which he was)? Why do Rather's viewers need liberal historian William Leuchtenberg to suggest that Jimmy Carter may look better to future generations than he looks today? Why should they be encouraged to think it's good news that the Klamath Indians have regained a whole raft of government entitlements the tribe lost in the Fifties? Why should they be led to think the country needs a federal law mandating 18 weeks' leave, unpaid but not costless, for new mothers and fathers? (To be fair, CBS News gave time to business persons opposing the law, but to be realistic, they never had a chance against the films of various mommies and daddies wishing to be home with their babies.) Why should Morning News viewers be told to exult in a splashy party in New York, where liberal chicsters like Joanne Woodward are promoting voter registration among the poor and minorities, whom they expect to vote liberal? (''That's one good thing celebrities can do in terms of making some effort to attack voter apathy,'' earnestly commented good old Charlie Rose.) Why are Rather's collaborators plainly on the side of the construction unions in Kentucky now attacking Toyota because it wishes to hire non-union workers at its big new plant there? And why is there so much dopey writing on CBS News? ''The Bronx Says Thonx to Corey Aquino'' was one effort at wit. Equally klutzy: ''The tax reform bill will move closer to your pocket today.'' And here is a statement, not ad- libbed, about some current political arithmetic: ''Of 34 Senate seats up this year, Republicans currently hold 22 of them.'' With syntax like that, who could worry about integrity?