Jesse Jackson to Debut His Own TV Talk Show in Fall : Media: Some feel the exposure could help his political future. Others caution that his credibility as a serious figure could be seriously undermined.

The Rev. Jesse Jackson, the Baptist preacher turned civil rights leader turned politician, is about to add another entry to his resume. When “Voices of America with Jesse Jackson” makes its debut in September, he will become a television talk show host.

The weekly, nationally syndicated, politics-oriented show will give Jackson additional exposure across the country. It also will underscore the changing interrelationships of politics, television and big business.

For Jackson, his supporters maintain, the potential benefits of the show appear to outweigh the risks. For other national officials and local television executives, political plans and future profits could be riding on Jackson’s latest career move.

Political observers said they believe Jackson will attempt to use the show to defuse his highly negative ratings among white Americans, in the hope that they may come to like him more and accept his political messages.

Some observers, however, acknowledged that there could be a potential downside for Jackson. If the show fosters an image of Jackson as an aspiring entertainer or publicity seeker, his credibility as a serious political figure could be undermined.

“People are going to be voting for or against him with their channel changers,” said Harrison Hickman, an influential Democratic pollster.

Jackson appears to believe that the repetition and intimacy of a weekly television show, beamed directly into people’s homes, will prove a cure for his popularity problems among white voters, enabling him to launch another bid for the White House in 1992. During a recent news conference to announce the show, he hinted that one benefit of the program would be to improve viewers’ “sense of comfort” with him.

If that happens, it could alter the political equation for other potential candidates in the 1992 presidential race and increase Jackson’s ability to influence the Democratic political agenda.

For local television executives who have agreed to air the show, the lure is profits, not politics. “Voices of America” offers an opportunity to generate programming aimed at black audiences and to collect advertising revenues from companies that want to sell their products to blacks.

Based on its acceptance by television station managers, the show is an early success. Entering an industry wary of risky programs and competing against an array of syndicated game shows, “Voices of America” has elbowed its way into the fall lineup on 105 stations across the nation, according to Warner Bros. Television Distribution, the show’s syndicator.

That’s offers Jackson a potential electronic passkey into 81% of the nation’s homes.

Spurred by the success of syndicated shows featuring black entertainers or hosts, particularly Oprah Winfrey and Arsenio Hall, local television executives are looking for programming that taps into the $1-billion minority advertising market.

Arnie Klein, station manager at Baltimore’s WBAL, was one of the first television executives to sign up for the Jackson show. He said “Voices of America” is certain to be successful in the Baltimore area, where 23% of television viewers are black, a higher proportion than in most markets.

“Jesse Jackson is a well-known figure in the United States and in Baltimore who provokes comment wherever he goes,” Klein said. “That’s an unbeatable combination for the program in a market like Baltimore.”

But the disparate audiences and ambitions supporting “Voices of America” provoked Dr. Gene S. Robinson, an associate professor of communications at the University of Maryland, to characterize the show as having a “schizophrenic” personality.

“What kind of messages are going to be aimed at white audiences,” he asked, “and what kind of advertising is going to be aimed at black audiences? You have to understand who they’re trying to reach before you can understand the public’s perceptions of the show.”

And political analysts are unconvinced that television’s bright lights can improve Jackson’s lukewarm popularity among whites.

“Early on, there will be good bit of curiosity,” said John C. White, former Democratic National Committee chairman. “He’s going to reach a lot of people, but it’s going to be challenging to keep them.”

Linda Williams, a research fellow at the Joan Shorenstein Barone Center on Press, Politics and Public Policy in Cambridge, Mass., said that even if Jackson attracts a steady mainstream audience, his TV popularity will not necessarily deliver future votes.

“There’s no reason to believe that because people watch Jesse Jackson and feel more comfortable with him that they will vote for him,” she said.

But Williams, among others, contended that Jackson has nothing to lose--politically or financially--by using television to sell himself directly to the public. And while Jackson has not revealed his salary for doing the show, officials have said he would be paid “handsomely.”

“People will watch Jesse Jackson because he’s such a charismatic person,” Williams said. “He will be good on television, and people might find he’s not so frightening to them.”

The deciding factor in the show’s acceptance by potential white voters will be the role that Jackson plays on the program, said Doug Bailey, a Republican consultant and political newsletter publisher.

“If people who watch the show see Jesse Jackson as protagonist for his views, rather than the moderator of others’ opinions, he won’t have shifted his image much,” he said. “If people see a side of Jackson as moderator or conciliator, they may be seeing him in a way they’ve never seen him before, and it may change his image somewhat.”

Jackson stressed in a recent interview that his show will be a forum for people who have trouble getting their messages to the public. But he said that he would also express his opinions. “I have a point of view,” he said. “I’m not a neuter. But my point of view doesn’t inhibit my ability to have other points of view expressed.”

So far, the show consists of little more than a sales pilot and Jackson’s reputation. Jackson said the format still is under development, and production will not begin before June.

Jackson said he plans to feature filmed segments and interviews with political leaders as well as lesser-known, working people. If the show already were in production, he said, for example, he would have done segments on the release of Nelson R. Mandela from a South African prison and on the problems at coal mines during the Pittston coal strike.

“A lot of the show should be at the points of challenge, not just at a studio in Washington,” he said.