If You’re Not for Yourself, Who Will Be for You?

“So tell me, Sheila, your piece in Calendar today on ‘Milk and Honey,’ is it a typical, well-thought-out, well-written Sheila Benson movie review?”

“Yes, it is.”

“Reads well, does it?”

“Very well.”

“And some of the descriptions you use?”

“Well intentioned . . . well acted . . . falls apart before its midpoint . . . atrocious upbeat ending in Jamaica.”

“Those are excellent descriptions to use. And the review’s length?”

“About 18 inches.”

“Oh, I see. Not only a good read, but a short one. And that’s on Page 15 of today’s Calendar section?”

“Yes, Page 15.”

“And you recommend that we all read your review?”

“Very much so.”

“Well, always good reading you, pal. That’s Page 15 today? We’ll look for you in the paper.”

“You, too.”

If television devoted as much time to self-examination as self-promotion, its level of performance would improve dramatically.

Consider. If my above imaginary conversation with Times Film Critic Sheila Benson typically reflected even a small segment of newspaper content, most readers would revolt, after first falling apart with laughter over our pitifully transparent attempt to advertise and celebrate ourselves.

But television--like the chest-puffing politician who never stops running for office--gets away with its behavior because it has spent years shaping different expectations, accustoming us to its excesses. Just as we say, “Oh, well, that’s politics,” we also say, “Oh, well, that’s television.”

It’s true that the Big Three networks are widening their promotional horizons to combat the ever-growing challenge from cable and videos. That does not mean, however, that they’ve abandoned making some promos the old-fashioned, deceptive way.

Take Wednesday morning, for example. Take it and shove it.

Here was an NBC “Today” show exclusive, the biggest out-and-out scoop since then-KNXT Channel 2 news in Los Angeles covered the 1981 wedding of its own top sportscaster at that time, Jim Hill.

Yes, “Today” could boast that no one else--including its main competitors “Good Morning America” on ABC and “CBS News This Morning”--had an interview with Maria Shriver about her documentary, “Fatal Addictions,” which was airing that very night.

That’s Maria Shriver of NBC. That’s “Fatal Addictions” on NBC.

For much of TV, the addiction is self-promotion.

The “Today” piece began with a lengthy clip from the documentary, followed by Bryant Gumbel’s questioning of Shriver.

“Are we gonna have some success stories tonight?”

“Success stories . . . and a lot of pain.”

Later, Gumbel ended it.

“Always good seeing you, pal. Ten o’clock tonight?”

“Yes.”

You could live with this were “Today” also open to reporting about documentaries on opposing networks on the days they air. But don’t hold your breath.

It’s no big flash, unfortunately, when news programs (the “Today” show is produced by NBC’s news division) present self-promotion as news--witness what happens on network morning shows and many local newscasts in ratings sweeps months. But it should be a big flash because it’s a journalistic sell-out, a winking at ethics, a self-serving suspension of news standards.

In most cases, what occurs is a matter of an entertainment division having its will imposed on a news division. In Wednesday’s case, it was a news division using itself to promote itself and one of its own: not only the documentary, but indirectly also the series Shriver stars on, “Sunday Today” and the new “Yesterday, Today & Tomorrow.”

Never has there been a medium so incestuously promotional as television. So it seemed almost routine to hear anchor Morton Dean end a news segment on Thursday’s “Good Morning America” by vowing that an investigative story on the new ABC News series “PrimeTime Live” that night “should shock you.”

And in a space of about five minutes Wednesday morning, moreover, NBC viewers got a dose not only of Shriver, but also a KNBC Channel 4 news promo (“We get around . . .”), a promo applauding “L.A. Law’s” Emmy nominations and a Maxwell House coffee commercial starring Linda Ellerbee and ever-mugging “Today” weathercaster Willard Scott.

Running this commercial within the “Today” time period risks the possibility of some viewers confusing the clowning Maxwell House Willard with the clowning “Today” Willard, a mix-up that NBC seems almost to be encouraging.

But not its competitors. “Good Morning America” and “CBS This Morning” are running another version of the Maxwell House spot, one featuring only Ellerbee.

Meanwhile, “CBS This Morning” came up with a curious piece of its own Wednesday: Kathleen Sullivan interviewed the show’s health specialist, Dr. Robert Arnot, and a woman named Nancy Hicks, who had nearly drowned in a river-rafting accident observed by Arnot while taping a “CBS This Morning” segment on rafting.

How is it that this obscure incident became a story on “CBS This Morning”? Because the show had footage of Arnot helping others revive Hicks.

Would this have made the “CBS This Morning” lineup had the footage showed NBC’s Shriver helping save Hicks? No. In that case you would have seen it on the “Today” show.

Always good seeing you, pal.