Live Soviet Coverage <i> Is</i> Revolutionary : Television: When local stations celebrate meaningless live shots of reporters in the field, it gets harder and harder to distinguish the real thing.

Age is sometimes an impenetrable Kremlin wall, sealing us off from the emotions and experiences of other generations.

Thus, viewers in the under-30 crowd may not appreciate the full, boggling significance of what CNN is putting on the screen these mornings in the wake of swift, convulsive, volcanic changes in the Soviet Union.

There on the screen--live from Moscow--delegates of the governmental Supreme Soviet of this disintegrating, decadent nation debate its uncertain future in the aftermath of the recent coup d’etat .

They’re chaotic, repetitive and apparently leaderless while spraying verbiage across the big room and the airwaves. “It’s just talk, the usual blah, blah, blah,” said a Soviet journalist on CNN Tuesday, appearing disgusted by the body’s lack of focus.

Soon, however, the national legislators were addressed for a second day by embattled Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev, who again embraced major change and supported the right of Soviet republics to secede “constitutionally,” but threatened to resign if the union were not retained in some form. Although he acknowledged that the Communist Party and communism now appear doomed in the new Soviet Union, Gorbachev defiantly criticized “anti-communist hysteria.”

All of this right before your eyes.

Historically, the Supreme Soviet has been less supreme than ornamental in a nation where government institutions for years functioned largely as fronts for the Communist Party. And the Supreme Soviet is a smaller body than the Congress of People’s Deputies.

Just the same, the very idea that we now have this daily panoramic window into previously off-limits, smoke-filled chambers of Soviet officialdom--with simultaneous translation to boot--is something to ponder, behold and savor.

No one knows how much of what we’re seeing is histrionics. But the point is that we--along with others across the globe with access to CNN--are seeing whatever it is as it happens. This may seem routine to those with little memory of a pre- glasnost Kremlin that wore secrecy like a heavy veil. Yet what we’re seeing on the screen, courtesy of CNN, is truly revolutionary.

“Look what’s going on here!” a delegate exclaimed Tuesday. Yes, look!

Here, at least, is excitement that is not generated falsely. Here, at least, is live TV that has relevance beyond ratings.

Perhaps the instantaneous telecasting of events in the Soviet Union would arrive with even more impact if not for local stations having desensitized us to live TV with their abuse, misuse and overuse of this technology.

There are some breaking stories that cry out for live TV. In most cases, though, live TV in local newscasts has been the ultimate sham to attract viewers under false pretenses. Stations have viewed it primarily as a tool to build artificial drama and immediacy into news programs. It’s newscast furniture, as formulaic as anchor desks.

This is not news, it’s stagecraft, an act that is getting a little old.

So when day after day, we see stations celebrate meaningless live shots of reporters in the field reviewing or introducing crime stories that occurred hours earlier, it gets harder and harder to distinguish the real thing.

And live history in the making--the globe’s traditional nemesis nation going through epic metamorphosis--may indeed seem hollow and humdrum.

MOSCOW MAN: While ABC’s Peter Jennings and CBS’ Dan Rather are on post-coup vacation until after Labor Day, NBC’s Tom Brokaw is in Moscow for the week. On Tuesday morning, the recently arrived Brokaw was interviewed on “Today” by Bryant Gumbel about fast-moving events involving Gorbachev, Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin and the fate of the crumbling nation.

Talk about your instant experts.

It’s an oddity of network news--and a deafening echo of its self-promotional heartbeat--that anchors are depicted as being omnipotent on every story they cover in the field, as if they could instantly suck up and process information in a manner beyond their reporter colleagues and other mere mortals.

MIRACLE MAN: “Nightline” host Ted Koppel’s stint in Moscow last week yielded one of the most remarkable scenes of the post-coup TV coverage. Joining him on the screen was Alexander A. Bessmertnykh, who informed Koppel he was resigning as Soviet foreign minister under pressure from Gorbachev. And only then, with the ABC camera still rolling, did Bessmertnykh pick up the phone and break the news to Secretary of State James A. Baker III. As Koppel later noted, it was incredibly self-serving on Bessmertnykh’s part. In fact, it was just plain incredible in every way.

Another example of history merging with TV.