NBC Decides to Stop Using News Re-Creations : Television: The network moves the show that used the technique to its entertainment division.

NBC said today it will stop its use of controversial news re-creations and shift the only one of its programs that uses the technique from the news to the entertainment division.

Maria Shriver and all other news staff members working on the show, “Yesterday, Today & Tomorrow,” will be replaced, a news official said.

Three “Yesterday, Today & Tomorrow” specials have aired since August. A fourth, which includes a re-creation segment, will air as scheduled Nov. 28 with the current staff. But after that, NBC News will do no more re-creations, the company said.

The three co-anchors of “Yesterday, Today & Tomorrow”--Shriver, Mary Alice Williams and Chuck Scarborough--will no longer work on it nor will any other NBC News staff members, said Tom Ross, a senior vice president at NBC News.

Although defended by those using them as journalistically sound, news re-creations on “Yesterday, Today & Tomorrow” and CBS News’ “Saturday Night With Connie Chung” have been criticized by traditionalists such as former CBS News President Richard S. Salant.

They argue that among other things, news re-creations confuse viewers who might think they are seeing film or tape of a real event. In a statement today, NBC News President Michael Gartner agreed with that contention.

He said after experimenting with the three “Yesterday, Today & Tomorrow” specials and “observing their use in the industry, we have determined that the practice can result in confusion to the viewer.”

“Our primary responsibility at NBC News is to convey information clearly. If viewers are confused, the solution is simple--abandon re-creations in news programming.”

CBS News declined to comment on whether Chung’s series, the only one at CBS News to use news re-creations, will stop using them.

ABC News has no series with news re-creations and never will, ABC News President Roone Arledge has said. ABC came under heavy criticism last July when a simulation of a purported spy encounter was run on “World News Tonight,” but the company later apologized and Arledge has called the incident an aberration.