THE ‘FLYING WEDGE’: KCBS STRIKER PLOY

Seconds before Channel 2 News entertainment reporter Digby Diehl delivered a live report on the KCBS-TV 7 p.m. newscast Thursday, he hopped into the bushes in front of the Beverly Hilton Hotel in an attempt to dodge two striking news writers and their picket signs.

But John Amato, 32, and Cynthia Hubach, 26, who were among 525 news writers who struck CBS and its owned-and-operated stations on March 2, followed Diehl into the bushes, pushed aside palm fronds and poked signs reading “Writers Guild of America Strikes CBS” inches behind the flustered reporter’s head.

Diehl, who was trying to do a live report from the American Film Institute’s dinner honoring Barbara Stanwyck, stumbled over his lines and forgot one of the four films for which Stanwyck received Academy Award nominations. But he never acknowledged the picket signs lolling at the back of his head, even though viewers at home could clearly see them.

“They’re doing what they have to do,” Diehl said after finishing his report. “They are in the middle of a very difficult situation. Sure it interferes with my job. It makes me damn nervous to have them there. But it is a legitimate way to make their point. It’s a free country.”

While acknowledging strikers’ right to continue to bring attention to their cause, KCBS management frowns on the tactic.

“Half of what we have to do here is show pictures, and for them to block half of our means of getting information across doesn’t exactly seem like a fair way of getting their point across,” said KCBS spokeswoman Andi Sporkin.

The strikers call themselves “flying wedges,” and their technique of regularly reminding both CBS management and KCBS viewers that guild members are still on strike is being hailed by union leaders from New York to Los Angeles as one of the most effective management harassment tools to emerge since the invention of the picket sign itself.

“Picketing at the station is not effective,” one of the writers said. “It lets the people we work with know that we’re still out here, but it doesn’t keep any of them from going to work. This (the wedge) gives management headaches and successfully serves to get our message out to the public.”

But getting that message out, especially now that KCBS management has had six weeks to practice evading the pickets, is no easy task.

The “wedgers” behave like an elite commando unit, monitoring radio scanners that broadcast communications between the directors in the KCBS control room and their camera crews in the field. They also solicit leaks from inside the newsroom that tell them where the day’s live shots will be.

Acting on such advance information Thursday, the “wedgers” sprinted about 400 yards around the full length of the Beverly Hilton to get to Diehl seconds before he was to go on camera. They hid behind trees and trucks before springing into action just as the shot was broadcast live.

The wedge detail is not always so lucky.

A few hours before they caught Diehl unawares, Amato and Hubach were going to sabotage Kevin O’Connell’s live weather shots from the L.A. Zoo on the 4, 5 and 6 p.m. broadcasts. But when they arrived at the zoo a few minutes after 4 p.m., they found that the zoo was closed.

Security guards at the zoo said they had been alerted that the strikers would show up, and had been instructed to let them in, without their picket signs, if they arrived before 4 p.m. and if each of them paid the full price of admission.

The strikers argued for more than an hour with zoo officials, but were not allowed in, partly because they did not get there until after 4 p.m.

Amato and Hubach finally gave up and headed for the hotel. As time ticked away, neither of them could find the KCBS crew in the mob of screaming paparazzi at the Beverly Hilton. They were about to concede defeat for the second time when they found a stray KCBS technician who let them know that Diehl was about to do his stand-up just outside the hotel. Weaving their way through a pack of limousines and ignoring the curious stares of several Beverly Hills police officers, they arrived just in time.

Diehl, dressed in a tuxedo, saw them coming. A KCBS management directive orders all crews and reporters to take evasive action whenever the pickets arrive at a news scene, so Diehl stepped into the bushes.

The camera quickly zoomed in close on Diehl’s face and, with his nose, mouth and glasses filling the screen, he began his live report.

“They are making the reporter stand on the top of vans or up against walls. They’re zooming in so tight until all they are showing is a live shot of the reporter’s nostrils while he’s standing on the steps of the courthouse,” Amato said. “It defeats the entire purpose of a live shot. But management would rather have that bad shot than let our signs on the air.”

After getting their signs on the air behind Diehl, Amato and Hubach kissed each other and skipped away like two high school sweethearts who had just gotten away with a perfect adolescent prank.

“This is the most fun we get to have these days,” Amato said.

But he was quick to add, “We’d rather be working.”