Channels 2 and 4 Put a Lid on Trash News for Sweeps

Ratings sweeps usually litter local newscasts with so much garbage that, to steal a line uttered on last week’s “Murphy Brown” in another context, “it looks like a goat exploded.”

There’s good news so far this month, however, for there have been no five-parters on phone sex or in-depth probes of leg waxing. Compared to past sweeps periods, in fact, November has been an explosion of substance--not yet worthy of bronzing, but affirmation at least that KCBS-TV Channel 2 and KNBC Channel 4 now believe in sweeps life beyond trash news.

At KABC-TV Channel 7, meanwhile, the goat is still bursting.

A November-long emphasis on drug reports at Channel 2 has so far yielded a very credible series by the station’s medical specialist, Dr. Howard Torman, a fusion of good pictures and information noting the effect of drugs on the brain. And Monday brought a promising start for Ann Curry’s series on treatment for crack addicts.

Far more spectacular has been the 10-part series by Channel 4 anchorman Jess Marlow on the revolutionary political, economic and social upheaval inside the Soviet Union. Marlow, who is much more of a journalist than most anchors, traveled to the Soviet Union in August and, in addition to preparing reports for Los Angeles consumption, appeared on Soviet TV as part of an exchange that now has Soviet TV commentator Svetlana Stardomskaya appearing on Channel 4 part of this month. Accompanying Marlow from Channel 4 were producer Rick Marks, researcher Meera Cheriyan and cameramen Kort Waddell and Peter Warneke.

As if Channel 4 had just sighted these really weird UFOs called glasnost and perestroika , Marlow began last week by eagerly reporting the already reported. “As Jess learned, Gorbachev himself might be threatened by the revolution,” Colleen Williams, Marlow’s 5 p.m. co-anchor, announced in introducing Part 1. Unfortunately, Marlow was learning what everyone else had learned long ago. Nor was his Part 2, focusing on already widely covered unrest among Soviet ethnic minorities, any fresher.

“Mr. Marlow Goes to Moscow” initially seemed to echo Channel 4’s self-promoting Seoul newscasts during the 1988 Summer Olympics. Just when you began writing off Marlow’s trip as a self-serving ruse to celebrate Channel 4 and him during sweeps, however, he came through with a very nice piece updating Chernobyl, followed the next evening by another just as interesting on Soviet environmental problems, followed by still another Friday on how the new Soviet freedoms extend to hard rock music. All of it was good stuff.

From the media’s perspective, the nice thing about glasnost is that it rubs off on everyone, even an NBC station in Los Angeles. As always, however, Channel 7’s approach to ratings sweeps is somewhat less cosmic.

Channel 7 is the guy who eats dinner in a $750 suit and gets ketchup on his tie, the station whose infrequent noble ideas are inevitably eclipsed by cheap histrionics.

For this week’s five-part “Kennels of Shame,” Channel 7 anchor Paul Moyer went to Kansas to expose the dog-mistreating “puppy mills” that supply some pet shops. It’s a worthy topic offering opportunities to dramatize the institutionalized cultural exploitation of animals.

If its first segment was typical, however, the Moyer series stands a good chance of being defeated by its own low journalism--broad charges and declarations of fact without attribution, for example--and such tactics as manipulative background music and a seemingly provoked confrontation with a kennel operator that served the theatrical needs of television, but diverted attention from the substance of the story.

The fundamental concern is arguably not kennels, moreover, but pet shop owners who sustain the brutality by patronizing suppliers whom they know mistreat animals.

The fundamental concern of Channel 7 in November, meanwhile, is whether it will run out of its own shows to advertise on “Eyewitness News.” It hasn’t in the past. During its 11 p.m. newscasts following “thirtysomething” and “China Beach” last week, it aired stories on each of those ABC series.

In another example of scrambled priorities, this time during a prime-time news break on Nov. 7, Channel 7 turned the death of Jill Ireland’s son, Jason McCallum, into a titillating tease for its late news, announcing that the son of a famous actor had died, without identifying either of them. Although exploiting tragedy for news ratings has long TV tradition, this was cynicism at its lowest.

No less blatant last week was Channel 7’s five-part series on Oprah Winfrey in its 4 p.m. newscast, which follows--and benefits from--her hugely popular syndicated talk show. On Nov. 7, Winfrey was interviewed live on the news set (for the second time this year), after which she was applauded on the air by everyone present, including salivating anchors Harold Greene and Maryanne Banister.

Fawning’s a dirty job, but somebody has to do it.

On Friday, moreover, “Eyewitness News” entertainment critic Gary Franklin dutifully interviewed Farrah Fawcett, star of the ABC docudrama “Small Sacrifices.” So incredibly deep was the interview that Franklin just had to extend it to a 6 p.m. newscast on Sunday, which just happened to be the night that the two-part “Small Sacrifices” premiered.

Franklin: “Show starts tonight at 9 . . . on ABC, of course . . . concludes Tuesday night same time. Enjoy!” In an apparent oversight, there were no interviews on Channel 7 relating to that night’s programs on CBS or NBC.

Critics are definable by their sensibilities. Appearing on TV Sunday, critic John Leonard effusively praised the ABC series “China Beach.” The key difference was that Leonard appears on “CBS Sunday Morning” and so, unlike Franklin, was celebrating a show on a rival network during sweeps. Integrity does live.

Not that Channel 7’s newscast chauvinism isn’t infectious. NBC’s Monday movie “Cast the First Stone” preceded an 11 p.m. newscast on Channel 4 revealing the “real story” behind the movie. Channel 4 had advertised this non-news on an earlier newscast.

Moreover, whom did Channel 4 sportscaster Fred Roggin select to interview live during last Wednesday’s 5 p.m. news segment, an hour after Pete Rose’s appearance on the station’s syndicated “Donahue” series? He picked Phil Donahue--who last week taped his show in Los Angeles.

Only on Channel 4 was Donahue himself the news. Interviewing the interviewer, Roggin asked Donahue for his reaction to interviewing Rose. All that remained was for someone to ask Roggin for his reaction to interviewing Donahue. Maybe next time.

On television there’s always a next time, and a next sweeps.