THE BEST AND WORST OF SHUTTLE COVERAGE

It was corny, maudlin and overly sentimental. It was mushy and weepy, gushy, gooey and schmaltzy--all the things that are ridiculed in a play, film or TV movie.

It also was extraordinary and wonderful.

Friday’s memorial ceremony in Houston for the seven astronauts who died aboard the shuttle Challenger--carried live by ABC, CBS, NBC and CNN--deserves a longer life than a TV moment. It should be made into a video for Americans who need revving up about their country.

There are two distinct sides to American TV, at once the nation’s whoopee cushion and its secu rity blanket. You can forgive its nonsense at times like these when, for however long or short, it helps bond a diverse and often-divided people.

For a week now, tragedy has again been our common denominator and TV our common voice.

In terms of numbers, the nation has suffered far greater losses than the explosion of Challenger, but few larger when it comes to symbolism. And TV has swelled this American footnote into an unforgettable wake.

You didn’t have to be a flag- waver to experience a rush of patriotism and a sense of release and completion--like an enormous sigh--when the seven Challenger victims were eulogized Friday by President Reagan and others at Johnson Space Center.

There have been few scenes on TV more gripping or pure or spiritual or intensely emotional than the space center throng singing “America the Beautiful” and then “God Bless America” as the President and First Lady personally greeted the dead astronauts’ families.

And seldom has Reagan, who was visibly moved, had broader shoulders or stood taller. When the tearful daughter of Challenger Capt. Michael Smith put her head on the President’s chest, it was enough to make grown men and women choke up. And at least one did.

ABC anchorman Peter Jennings had begun in a quivering voice to describe the healing impact of Reagan’s “mere presence” when suddenly he could no longer continue. For perhaps a minute, there was only silence except for what sounded like soft sobbing in the background.

We often underestimate the capacity of network anchors to influence America. Because of TV’s immediacy and reach, however, they are the ones most of us look to for an emotional cue during unsettled times. And if they can panic the nation, they also can play a positive role, as Jennings did in Houston. This healthy, human display of feeling by a man unfairly faulted by some as being icy, had a cleansing, almost cathartic effect, as if a surrogate had pulled the plug on our emotions, too.

The ceremony was an honest memorial that gave the nation what it needed most--a good cry.

Yet, around the edges at least, TV coverage of the Challenger tragedy has occasionally been less honest than manipulative and exploitative. Pictures of the Challenger explosion have been used as promos for newscasts, and CBS on Friday used a picture of teacher/astronaut Christa McAuliffe’s mother wiping away tears as an early-morning tease for “The CBS Evening News” that was to follow much later.

There was every reason to include footage of the Challenger explosion and the reactions of McAuliffe’s family and other launch spectators in news coverage on the day of the tragedy. But there was no justification for repeating those pictures again and again over the next two days as if feeding viewers’ appetite for violence and misery.

Meanwhile, there are new excesses, including reporters hassling children for their reactions to the Challenger disaster, as if kids were human test tubes.

The issue of personal privacy has become a sidebar to the Challenger story. While watching NBC’s “Today” show Thursday morning, I heard someone shout, “Turn it off! Turn it off!” The voice was mine.

Continuing its Challenger coverage, “Today” was replaying a tape of Cincinnati teacher Jim Rowley reacting to seeing the fiery explosion on a TV set in his classroom. A Cincinnati TV crew had been sent to the classroom of Rowley--a semifinalist to go on the Challenger flight--to capture the happy reactions of the bearded teacher and his students to the launching.

Instead, viewers saw Rowley near collapse. He sighed deeply and his entire body seemed to sag in response to the horror he was witnessing on the screen. He was so devastated, so distraught that he could barely speak.

“Let’s turn off the camera,” he muttered emotionally. He obviously wanted to be alone with his thoughts.

But the camera continued to roll. Even worse, it moved in even closer on the teacher’s face, then lingered on the shocked faces of students and then trailed the stunned Rowley as he silently walked across the classroom and left through a door.

That’s when I shouted at TV to lay off.

ABC’s “World News Tonight,” “The CBS Evening News” and even NBC’s “Nightly News” earlier had used the same footage, but clipped it at the point where Rowley made his request for privacy. But not “Today.” The incident was fleeting, gone in a flash and hardly representative of most Challenger coverage. Yet it represented the ultimate media hypocrisy.

On the one hand, “Today” mournfully lowered its eyes and its voice when referring to the seven shuttle victims. On the other, it freely exploited Rowley’s grief over the tragedy.

The people’s right to know is not a synonym for the media’s right to bully. The camera shouldn’t be a voyeur, and Rowley had the right to grieve beyond the scrutiny of millions of TV viewers.

“Today” executive producer Steve Friedman seemed almost to agree when asked about the decision to air the complete Rowley footage. “It was real close, right on the line,” he said by phone from New York. “I certainly would not have done it if it was a family member. And in retrospect, after seeing it, I think I would have cut it off after he asked the camera to stop.”

There are rare times when the people’s right to know outweighs the individual’s right to privacy. An example: the memorable footage of the McAuliffe family and other launch spectators reacting to the explosion of Challenger at a public occasion. No other pictures--including those of the explosion itself--better conveyed the emotional impact of the shuttle’s midair destruction. And no other first-day pictures so vividly defined the nation’s loss.

The President called the seven Challenger astronauts heroes, and they are. If only there could be so grand and eloquent a testimonial for the many less glamorous American heroes that no one has heard about.

TV cameras poignantly surveyed the anguished faces at the Houston memorial Friday, and the networks showed excerpts of private rites in other areas of the countries. And following their hour telecasts, ABC, NBC and CBS joltingly switched back to their usual morning fare--game shows. That’s America, too.