Anchors Away: Local TV Reporters in the Gulf : Television: KCAL’s Jackson and KABC’s Paen hit their targets, but KNBC’s Williams fires blanks.

Behold, a picture from across the seas! Is this the face of television news to come?

“Good evening from Saudi Arabia. It is hot, it is dry. . . .”

And, most definitely, it is Colleen Williams, her hair blasted by stiff breezes, coming to you live this week direct from the Persian Gulf crisis.

As Williams, who co-anchors the 5 p.m. news on KNBC Channel 4, was blowing wind and blowing in the wind from Saudi Arabia Monday, Alex Paen--who publishes an international TV publication called the Telco Report when he is not moonlighting for KABC-TV Channel 7 once every millennium--was reporting on Channel 7 via videotape from Amman, Jordan. He was on his way back to Los Angeles after an eight-day stint in Baghdad, Iraq, for the station.

Meanwhile, KCAL Channel 9’s David Jackson, normally the station’s 9 p.m. co-anchor, continues to file thrice-nightly reports from the gulf region, where he has been for more than six grueling weeks.

Finally, there was Tom Vacar, who was briefly in the gulf area for KTTV Channel 11 (and KNX-AM radio), for which he normally does consumer reporting.

So it’s not only the desert sands that are sizzling, but also the gulf promotional battle, with some local stations enlisting the crisis in the cause of ratings in hopes of drawing attention to themselves and sweetening their images with viewers. For these stations, as well as for the networks, gulf tensions have been just about the hottest ticket going.

“Alex Paen, first local TV reporter in Baghdad,” Channel 7 boasted in a news release last week. “Colleen Williams reports from Saudi Arabia, only on the Channel 4 news,” a KNBC promo now trumpets. And for a while, Channel 9 was billing Jackson as the “only” local TV reporter in the gulf region. That changed.

With the once-great network news divisions in decline, and CNN and satellite technology enabling individual stations to increasingly usurp the networks’ traditional roles as global reporters, this surge of locals flocking to the gulf region could be a preview of futuristic TV news. If the future isn’t already here, that is.

The news is not all bad.

The gulf coverage of that iron man Jackson, for example, has been by far the brightest star for Channel 9, which is functioning almost as its own network in trying to build an audience for its prime-time three-hour news block.

Unlike Paen (ABC) and Williams (NBC), Jackson doesn’t have the luxury of support from an actual network, and thus has been unable to get into either Baghdad or Saudi Arabia. What do the Saudis or Iraqis know of KCAL? Even with this disadvantage and working as virtually a one-man bureau, however, Jackson has been terrific.

Being profound nightly is too much to ask. For just regularly showing up and being cogent, however, Jackson deserves a medal. Even under the pressure of sometimes having to spin stories from non-stories, moreover, his reports have been thoughtful and incisive without being hysterical.

Meanwhile, Channel 7 says it plans to retain Paen for the time being as its regular reporter on the gulf crisis in Los Angeles. Although a part-time journalist at best, Paen gets credit for persistence and having at least some background in the gulf region. He has made several trips to Iraq after first coming to public attention in 1979 when, as a reporter for KMPC-AM radio, he went to Iran during the Iran hostage crisis.

Like its bitter rival Channel 7, Channel 4 has some capable reporters it could have dispatched to Saudi Arabia. And if it regarded this as such an important story, then why not send one of them?

Instead, it’s Williams, whose only qualifications seem to be that (1) she wanted to go and (2) she comes from a military family.

Williams is a very good news reader and anchor when not reacting spontaneously to the news (one recalls her funereal bearing not long ago while reading a second-hand report of Iraqis vowing to eat captured American pilots). And credit her with so intensely wanting to go to Saudi Arabia that she volunteered.

As a reporter in the field, however, this kid is a camel.

In one of those looks-good-so-let’s-do-it moves, Williams has been co-anchoring from Saudi Arabia, opening the 5 p.m. newscast, reading intros for additional gulf-related stories supplied by NBC and others and contributing her own taped interviews of troops.

Then, in TV news style, it’s time for Williams to be debriefed by Jess Marlow and Carla Aragon, who has been filling in for her as Marlow’s co-anchor.

On Monday, the day after her arrival (it was a little after 3 a.m. there), Williams was asked for her personal thoughts. The instant expert replied:

“My reaction is so far that there is a lot going on here, and they’re not treating this as simply an exercise. This is serious business. If you’ve been up with the Marines and talked to them like I did today, you know there is, or there appears to be, a threat of terrorism. They’re on the move all the time. This is the real thing.”

A lot going on . . . serious business . . . the real thing. And by the way, Aragon wanted to know, had Williams located her brother, a navigator serving in Saudi Arabia? No, Williams hadn’t. But stay tuned.

On Tuesday came Williams’ taped interviews with officers at a “top-secret air base,” after which she herself was interviewed by Marlow and Aragon, who wanted to know if it was true that “the real strength (of the U.S. forces) is in the air. . . .” The light bulb clicking on over her head, Williams replied:

“You’re right. There are a lot of Air Force and Navy planes, jet fighters and things like that over here. We understand even more may be coming in. A lot of that information is still very top secret. We’re not given numbers as far as troops or movements. I will say, yesterday, when we were talking to the Marines, we had trouble finding them. They’re on the move all the time. We can’t say where we are, except that they are here, they are working and they are ready.”

Yes, well, hold the front page.

Colleen Williams, volunteer foreign correspondent. And remember: “Only on Channel 4 News.”