What was going on when I was born?

A jury in Kansas City, Mo., yesterday began deliberating a television newswoman's charge that she was demoted on a news program because she was ''unattractive, too old and not deferential to men.'' She is seeking reinstatement, lost wages and damages. No matter how the jury decides, the suit has brought into public view a question that has troubled people in the industry for years: Are women who appear on camera on news programs still judged more by appearance than their male colleagues? ''It has become the symbolic focus of a lot of apprehension,'' said Diane Sawyer, co-anchor of the ''CBS Morning News.'' At the same time, the case has drawn attention to the fact that television executives increasingly rate a pleasing personality as more important than journalistic ability among reporters and anchors. Another concern raised by the case is the pervasive influence of market research on decision-making in television news.

With the economic recovery apparently gathering strength, the national unemployment rate dropped half a percentage point to 9.3 percent in July, the Labor Department announced today. Excluding military personnel, the jobless rate, seasonally adjusted, was 9.5 percent, also down half a percentage point from June. It was the largest one-month decline since 1958, and it sent the civilian unemployment rate below 10 percent for the first time since July 1982. In New York City, however, unemloyment rose sharply, to 10.6 percent from 8.9 percent in June. The rate in New York State declined, to 8.5 percent, and New Jersey's rate, at 8.4 percent, was unchanged. (Page 6.)

A General Accounting Office study, made public today, concludes there were ''serious problems'' in the Government's handling of potential safety-related defects in General Motors 1980 X-model cars. The study by the G.A.O., an investigative arm of Congress, says the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration did not follow its own guidelines for investigations into safety-related defects and showed an ''apparent reluctance'' to inform the public. The report says the agency's investigation into the 1980 X-model cars extended from late 1979 to early 1983 and was ''allowed to remain essentially inactive for about 13 months.'' 'Campaign of Nonenforcement' Representative Timothy E. Wirth, the Colorado Democrat who had requested the study, released it in House hearings today, where he charged the safety agency with carrying out a ''campaign of nonenforcement'' under President Reagan.

Japan produced 58 million electronic calculators last year, but that does not necessarily mean that people count on them for anything. Despite all the state-of-the-art gimcracks that this country cranks out, daily life is still governed by a rectangular gadget that never blinks or blips, never runs down and has never been known to go wrong just because a 6-year-old tried to test its mettle underwater. The simple, elegant abacus is not only surviving, but by some measures is even thriving. This Monday is Abacus Day in Japan, and while it is not an occasion of great public commemoration, its mere existence shows the resilience that a few beads and strips of hard wood can have.

A leader of New York City's hotel industry said yesterday that he would like to see the New York Coliseum remain open after the city's new Convention Center is completed. The official, Klaus R. Ottman, said the 320,000-square-foot Coliseum should continue to accommodate small and medium-sized shows that are presented there. He said the Convention Center, which is more than twice as large, could concentrate on drawing larger shows and conventions from out of town. Present plans call for the Coliseum, at Columbus Circle, to be shut and possibly sold when the Convention Center opens, at a date now projected at between April 1985 and mid-1986.

The United States has dropped several key demands in strategic arms negotiations with the Soviet Union to ease the way toward a new strategic arms agreement, but the two sides have not achieved a breakthrough on the central issues, the chief American strategic arms negotiator disclosed today. The negotiator, Edward L. Rowny, reporting on the last two months of talks in Geneva, told President Reagan this morning that new flexibility on both sides had produced ''forward movement'' but that an agreement was still ''a long ways off.'' Afterward, he said at a White House news briefing that he did not expect major advances in the strategic arms talks until there was progress on the parallel negotiations on European- based nuclear forces because Moscow placed higher priority on the regional force talks. A Matter of Priorities ''We can't make any real movement until they see how that one's going to go,'' Mr. Rowny said. ''In my view, our negotiation is not their priority attention.''

A pro-Libyan paratroop captain who was dismissed as Prime Minister of Upper Volta in May seized power in the West African country today in a coup that reportedly left 13 people dead and 15 wounded. Diplomats in Upper Volta said 6 of the wounded were French nationals. The captain, Thomas Sankara, 35 years old, went on national radio to announce the ouster of the Government of President Jean-Baptiste Ouedraogo. The captain, who helped put Mr. Ouedraogo in power in a coup last Nov. 2, was jailed in May for a month for arranging what was described as a surprise visit to Upper Volta by the Libyan leader, Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi.

In much of Africa, the United States has become a synonym for imperialism and, when some African leaders gather, it is the vogue to denounce one, the other or both. But not in Mombasa.The radical message does not seem to have percolated through the coastal heat to reach Kenya's second city. This is a place where United States Navy baseball caps, emblazoned with ships' names, are a fashion, a trophy and almost a form of currency. It is a place, too, where the spirit of private enterprise flutters free. ''Want to sell dollars, man?'' says a young Kenyan on the sidewalk, his speech overlaid with the argot of the United States fleet and the television program ''Dallas.''

Lech Walesa today criticized the Government's new regulations that replaced martial law, saying they were a throwback to the Stalinist era of the 1950's. Underground Solidarity leaders have called for a two-hour boycott of public transportation and other protests on Aug. 31. Mr. Walesa said earlier that this was ''too soft for my liking,'' but he made no clear call for other action in the statement issued from his home in Gdansk today.

The United States will give Guatemala $50 million in food credits and $7 million in food in the fiscal year starting Oct. 1, Secretary of Agriculture John R. Block announced today as he arrived on the first stop of a 10-day visit to Latin America.

A car bomb exploded here today in front of a crowded mosque in Syrian-controlled northern Lebanon, and the police said at least 19 people were killed and 43 injured. The Islamic Unity Party, a Sunni Moslem group, charged the bombing had been carried out by agents of President Amin Gemayel's Government in Beirut and the Phalange, Lebanon's largest Christian party. The Phalange is headed by the President's father, Pierre Gemayel.

Copies of a book by Seymour M. Hersh that are sold in India will carry a note about President Nixon's policies on India and about the author's contention that former Prime Minister Morarji R. Desai was a paid informant for the Central Intelligence Agency. Mr. Desai, who denies having worked for the C.I.A., filed a defamation suit against Mr. Hersh over his allegations in ''The Price of Power: Kissinger in the Nixon White House'' and tried to stop distribution of the book. The Bombay High Court ruled this week that each copy of the book sold in India must contain a note, which was edited by the court, saying that the distributors have no reason to believe the statements about Mr. Desai.