HERSCHENSOHN--POLITICS AND PROTESTS AT KABC

He’s Bruce and he’s loose.

Or as Tom Snyder mockingly announced on his KABC-TV Channel 7 talk show Tuesday: “He’s back. He’s big. He’s live. He’s on Seven.”

Like a boomerang, Bruce Herschensohn has returned, the conservative steamroller and whipped senatorial candidate right-winging it once more on Channel 7’s “Eyewitness News” and KABC radio.

Herschensohn the human temblor made a tumultuous reappearance Tuesday, registering a 10 on the Richter scale. He was repeatedly celebrated on the air by his radio and TV colleagues and vilified by a new, leftish media watchdog group called Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR), which picketed Channel 7 to protest its “lack of balance” in commentary. FAIR plans to picket KABC radio for the same reason.

The questions of the hour:

-- Should Herschensohn be allowed to resume his commentaries so soon after losing the Republican senatorial nomination to Ed Zschau in the June primary?

Sure. Why should Herschensohn be temporarily exiled from broadcasting merely because he wanted the chance to unseat Democratic Sen. Alan Cranston? There is no established period of mourning for defeated political candidates.

--Should Channel 7 and KABC radio stop Herschensohn from commenting on issues pertaining to the Zschau/Cranston race?

Yes. You had to admire Herschensohn’s public geniality in defeat. No display of bitterness. He was the loyal soldier, vowing to support the party’s candidate.

But doesn’t his pledge to back Zschau compromise him as commentator on matters related to the senatorial campaign? He has an ax to grind, a partisan agenda. Although Herschensohn has never tried to hide his rigid allegiance to Republicanism, his public endorsement of Zschau disqualifies him as an observer on campaign issues.

If Herschensohn is allowed to comment on the race, there is a way to handle that. As someone trying to sell viewers a partisan bill of goods, he should be introduced each time as a Republican propagandist rather than as a commentator.

--Doesn’t Herschensohn’s return create an imbalance of political opinion on KABC radio and “Eyewitness News”?

Yes, and sort of.

Yes on KABC radio, which bumped Murray Fromson--who is politically liberal on most issues--to accommodate Herschensohn’s return to the “Ken and Bob Co.” Fromson, who was hired as a regular commentator following Herschensohn’s resignation to seek the Senate nomination in January, did not go gently, using his own final commentary Friday to blast the station for its political imbalance.

In his Tuesday radio commentary, Herschensohn--who favors supporting any nation friendly to the United States, regardless of its internal policies--questioned liberals’ criteria for relations with other nations.

“Why?” he repeatedly asked. He got no answer, of course, because there was no one from the other side of the political fence to reply.

Fromson’s departure means that KABC radio’s lineup now includes political conservatives Herschensohn and evening talk show hosts Ray Briem and Dennis Prager. To the left of them is morning talk-show host Michael Jackson.

To suggest that “Ken and Bob Co.” hosts Ken Minyard and Bob Arthur help balance Herschensohn is preposterous, for their delightful program is devoted almost entirely to whimsy, rarely to political debate.

And if you’re looking for a boggling quote of the week, try George Green, KABC president and general manager, who told reporter William Chitwood that he would have returned Herschensohn to the air “even if he had won.”

And what about Herschensohn on “Eyewitness News”? He sort of tips the scales there, too, but for different reasons.

Channel 7’s other full-time commentator is liberal Bill Press, a wittier, far better and more incisive writer and speaker than Herschensohn, who manages to be effective despite communicating in rambling, convoluted sentences. Unlike Press (and Fromson, too), moreover, Herschensohn rarely comments on all-important regional and local issues.

In the past, though, Press’ single commentary on the 5 p.m. newscast has been sandwiched between Herschensohn commentaries on the 4 and 6 p.m. newscasts, giving him half the exposure that Herschensohn gets.

Channel 7 gets around that, though, by serving former Democratic Sen. John Tunney to Herschensohn a couple of times a week on its 6 p.m. newscast.

Debate? Slaughter is a better word.

Tunney may be a real tiger off the air. On TV, though, he is a wimp, ill-prepared and no match for the agile-minded, jugular-sniffing Herschensohn, who always does his homework and consistently grinds his more liberal foil into dust by sheer force of personality.

Press, Fromson and a slew of other liberals would be better tests for Herschensohn, but so what? A better idea is to scrap all TV debates--whether mini or maxi. They’re pure show biz, proving only who is the better debater and ad-libber. In this case, it’s Herschensohn in a breeze.

Far better for Channel 7--or any other station, for that matter--to give commentators expressing generally opposing political views separate but equal time.

There’s reason to rap the political tilt of Channel 7 and KABC radio. It would have been helpful, however, had critics of KABC expressed that same concern when the liberal Press was virtually the only commentator on Channel 7 in Herschensohn’s absence.

Press made the point in his amusing tongue-in-cheek Monday commentary, saying about Herschensohn’s return: “It’ll be good again to have two points of view.” He said he’d prefer having Herschensohn in a TV studio commenting on policy rather than making it.

If only Press had stopped there and not grandstanded Tuesday night in response to a report in the Herald Examiner that FAIR considered Press and Tunney “too moderate” to balance Herschensohn. FAIR says the quote was taken out of context.

Here’s what happened:

On each of its Tuesday newscasts, Channel 7 went through the motions of legitimately covering the FAIR protest, even interviewing the group’s coordinator, Jeff Cohen.

So far, so good. But then Channel 7 gave FAIR a bitter dose of Channel 7’s fairness, verbally thrashing the group in the studio. Timewise and noisewise, the response completely overshadowed the protest.

That included Press’ outraged, self-serving commentaries on the 5, 6 and 11 p.m. newscasts. He usually gets only one shot a night. But with FAIR the target, he got three.

How dare FAIR call him too moderate! Hadn’t some viewers called him Commie? Hadn’t he espoused liberal causes in the past? He ticked off some of his past commentaries and asked: “And for all that, I’m dismissed as being too moderate?”

Give Press credit for calling KABC radio politically slanted and adding that even Channel 7 was a little tilted. And he has every right to question “the balance on the L.A. Times.” But he went on to imply that stations having no commentators at all were more politically imbalanced than Channel 7. Huh?

Talk about overreacting. You’d think that FAIR had accused Press of child beating or bestiality.

Press said that he didn’t respect FAIR--take that!--and that FAIR would never have his job. Nyeh nyeh nyeh-nyeh nyeh.

And finally--it seems that Press had an agenda of his own in all of this--he added: “Let Bruce and me debate the issues every day.” He was lobbying for himself, sounding like the Iron Sheik challenging Hulk Hogan.

As for Herschensohn’s present debate partner, well, you had to see the 6 p.m. newscast to believe it, as Herschensohn and Tunney devoted their debate time together blubbering about each other.

“I call Bruce Herschensohn my friend,” Tunney said. “I think the world of John,” said Herschensohn. You felt like leaving the room so that they could be alone.

Suddenly awakening, intrepid anchorman Jerry Dunphy asked: “John, you don’t disagree with him (Herschensohn) coming back and Bill Press doesn’t disagree with him coming back. Why the fuss?” The story had been on the air three times and he didn’t understand “the fuss”?

In any event, that gave Herschensohn an opening to deliver his concluding edict, one last rip, saying that he had visited the FAIR picketers outside the station. “They aren’t liberals,” he said. “They’re kooky.”

As always, though, the kooks on TV were getting the final word.