Ex-Herald Staffers Find Jobs in Television : Employment: Journalists cope with changes. They promise a harder news focus.

KTTV Channel 11 and KABC-TV Channel 7 have turned to veterans of the defunct Los Angeles Herald Examiner to fill key positions in their news departments.

In the two months since the newspaper folded, KTTV has hired Rick Arthur, who spent the past 4 1/2 years as the paper’s sports editor, as managing editor; assistant city editor Betsy Bates as planning director, and sports writer Bob Keisser as sports editor. The trio were recommended by Mitchell Fink, the Herald Examiner’s “Page 2” columnist, who had also been delivering a video version of his column on Channel 11’s newscasts.

KABC-TV, meanwhile, brought aboard Linda Breakstone, the Herald Examiner’s chief political writer and columnist, as a “reporting producer” on political and investigative stories, a position that will lead to on-air reporting.

Channel 11 news director Joe Barnes said that he has turned to print reporters and editors out of a desire to “see more journalism in television news.”

“There are good television news people, but I think good, experienced newspaper people have a wealth of experience and judgement they can bring into a television newsroom,” Barnes said in an interview. “The people we’ve hired bring a good history and knowledge of stories and contacts from this area and that’s real important to us. They also bring more and fresher ideas to editorial meetings, and the more good ideas we have, the better our coverage will be.”

Arthur has been placed in charge of the station’s reporters and of overseeing the selection and placement of stories. He said he has also been promised a role in proposed newscasts that Fox would deliver to the seven stations it owns.

“The differences aren’t as big as I had anticipated,” Arthur said. “News is news. The transition is easier for me than it might be for others because of the uniqueness of the Herald Examiner. We were the closest thing to television in print. We were big, bold, visual, dramatic and exciting.”

Breakstone believes that working in television will be much different than newspapers, with each medium having its advantages and disadvantages.

“In television, you can do a story better than in print because you are able to show scenes, pictures and facial reactions. You can capture the story simply by people’s mannerisms,” said Breakstone, who had been with the Herald Examiner since 1978.

“On a newspaper you have more of a chance to investigate a story. Some stories are really paper trails and take a long time to do. You can check a lot of things out from sources and on television it’s better to have those people on camera.

“If you break a story on a newspaper, it is on a piece of paper, and you can go back and look at it. On television, it evaporates into thin air.”

At the Herald Examiner, Breakstone broke stories on then-Lt. Gov. Mike Curb claiming political endorsements he didn’t have, Mayor Tom Bradley’s finances and the revelation that Sen. Alan Cranston (D-Calif.) was dyeing his remaining few strands of hair during his unsuccessful bid for the 1984 Democratic Presidential nomination. Her only television experience before joining Channel 7 had come as a panelist on several public affairs and interview shows.

Keisser, who had been the Herald Examiner’s sports television columnist, admitted that he was “suspicious” of sports reporting on television.

“I thought it was just about showing highlights and doing soft, fluffy coverage,” he said. “Everybody is looking for something that works, and when they find it, they stick with it. Joe (Barnes) convinced me that he really wants to do news here, and that’s important for me to be here.”

Channel 11’s hourlong 10 p.m. weeknight newscast has undergone many editorial and anchor changes over the past two years in a consistently futile effort to challenge KTLA Channel 5’s longtime ratings dominance among the market’s four VHF independent stations. In last November’s ratings “sweeps,” KTTV’s newscast received a 2.5 Nielsen rating, compared to KTLA’s 5.1. (Each rating point represents 49,315 households.)

More “subtle” alterations are in store, Arthur said.

“We want to speak to the individual Angeleno who’s watching us and cover what’s important in his or her city: Who owns L.A. and who runs L.A.,” Arthur said. “We want to speak conversationally, captivatingly and casually to our audience. We want to give them the news they need to know and also give them entertainment at the same time.”

Keisser, who gave up a job with The National, an all-sports newspaper set to debut this year, has some ambitious plans for Channel 11’s sportscasts.

“I want to do some enterprise reporting, find issues and investigate them,” Keisser said. “I want to accent news as opposed to just features. I want those features to be news oriented, visually appealing and interesting to people outside of sports fans.”