MEDIA / KEVIN BRASS : Home Team Advantage Is Lost on TV Sports Staffs

Sure, the rather mundane chore of reporting the scores of the day is a simple, almost trivial thing. At the Columbia School of Journalism, it is far down on the list of weighty topics for the professors and students to discuss. The relative merits of television news’ approach to game results will never be a subject worthy of a George Will-Sam Donaldson debate on national television.

Yet the local television sports departments’ method of reporting the scores is a daily, never-ending source of frustration for some sports fans. And it’s a pretty good example of the difference in the fundamental philosophies of newspapers and television toward the news.

Almost every newspaper in the country follows a specific style--listing the visiting team first, home team second--in box scores. A fan can pick up the newspaper, look at the box score and know instantly which team played at home. This is particularly important in football and basketball games, since the home team has a considerable advantage.

This same, very simple formula is followed on scoreboards, junior high school newsletters, baseball cards and just about every other place scores are listed. When they flash scores from around the country on the scoreboard during games at San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium, a fan knows instantly which team played at home.

But the local television sports departments--and their counterparts throughout the country--look at it differently. When they roll the scores, they never follow this accepted style, prefering to either list the winner first or not follow any pattern at all. Unless the sportscaster mentions something about it, the viewer has no idea which team had the home field advantage.

“It’s far easier for the eye to adapt to (listing) the winning team on top,” explained KGTV (Channel 10) sportscaster Larry Sacknoff.

KFMB-TV (Channel 8) has a much more succinct reason for listing the winning team first.

“Ted likes it that way,” said Channel 8 sports producer Louis Weiner, referring to the ratings god of local sportscasters, Ted Leitner. It’s the way they’ve always done it.

KNSD-TV (Channel 39) sports producer Rich Rudy, a former Channel 8 sports producer, has heard all the arguments before, which means he’s had a chance to mull it over.

“I’ve been asked a few times about it recently,” he said. In baseball, he noted, the home team doesn’t matter that much to viewers. In basketball the numbers are so large that it would be much harder for the viewer to determine the winner if the winning team was not listed first, Rudy said.

“The scores are not up there for very long,” he said.

This all makes it sound as if they are presenting the scores on flash cards, which, in a sense, they are. Given the local explanations, the results apparently are presented, by design, so quickly that people can comprehend only the minimal amount of information--specifically, who played and who won.

Certainly, some big thinkers in the television industry were paid thousands of dollars to determine how much information television viewers can absorb in the least amount of time.

That’s great. It’s probably very scientific, and clearly makes a lot of sense to people in television.

But sports fans also want to know where the games were played.

A whopping 45% of the respondents to a recent New York Times-CBS News Poll on Vice President Dan Quayle said they “haven’t heard enough about him yet to have an opinion,” which may explain why KNSD-TV (Channel 39) was able to arrange a half-hour interview with Quayle last week. It was the first extended interview Quayle has granted to a local station since assuming office, part of a new strategy designed to give Quayle a chance to express himself outside the glare of the national spotlight.

“ Strategy is a harsh word,” countered Liz Murphy, Quayle’s deputy press secretary. But she said Quayle hopes to do more in-depth interviews with local TV stations like the one he taped for Channel 39 last week, instead of the usual quickie interviews at the airport.

Channel 39 was given the honor of doing the first simply because they bothered to ask. The Vice President’s staff had been discussing the general concept of doing sit-down interviews when Channel 39’s Amy Michael contacted it about the possibility of Quayle being a guest on “San Diego Headliners.”

“The idea (of doing the interview) actually came from the request,” Murphy said.

Other San Diego stations tried to get Quayle, including “Inside San Diego,” but it was too late. He only had time for one.

“They (Channel 39) contacted me first,” Murphy said.

After a high-level staff meeting, executives of the “CBS This Morning” show told KFMB-TV Channel 8 weatherman Larry Mendte, in New York to fill in on the program last week, that he couldn’t wear his sneakers on the air. He had to go out and buy shoes. . . .

Thanks go to “P.M. Magazine” for doing a retrospective program, reminding viewers how many truly boring stories the show has done in 10 years. With only 30 minutes to recap 10 years, they seemed to be struggling to kill time. Popcorn king Orville Redenbacher was the highlight, which just about sums it up. . . .

Perhaps displaying some personal feelings, former Channel 8 reporter Loren Nancarrow, closing a report on the Bay Area earthquake Tuesday from KPIX in San Francisco, said, “Southern California is looking more appealing now.” But it’s still a long way off for Nancarrow. Negotiations for his return to Channel 8 have broken down, primarily because KPIX wants to keep him. . . .

Former Channel 39 reporter Jody Hammond took the stand last week in Naomi O’Hara’s suit against the station. O’Hara, identified in a 1983 grand jury report as kissing and hugging then-County Supervisor Paul Eckert in a restaurant parking lot, is suing the station for incorrectly referring to her as an “alleged prostitute.” Hammond, now with Channel 8, admitted that she simply picked up the story about the grand jury report from the San Diego Tribune, but accidentally confused O’Hara with alleged prostitute Christine Cole. The practice of picking up stories from newspapers is not unusual for television reporters, although they rarely admit it. . . .

Newsroom personnel at KSDO-AM (1130) last week voted to join the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists. . . . Instead of giving $10,000 to contest winners Thursday, KFMB-FM (B100) gave the money to the American Red Cross earthquake relief effort.