A Brush With Celebrity : Ego Journalism--The Rise of an I for an I

“What’s Maury Povich like?” asks a promo on KCBS Channel 2. “Find out at 3 on Channel 2.”

What is he like? Isn’t the purpose of a talk or interview show to inform you about the guests, not the host? Certainly not. And I’m thrilled that Channel 2 agrees.

Kevin Cook has written a devastatingly funny column in Playboy about the spread of “ego journalism” in magazines. “Is it me,” he asks, “or is who-what-when-where-why giving way to me-myself-and-I?” No, Kevin, it isn’t only you.

Now that I’ve given him credit, I feel justified in stealing Cook’s idea and applying it to television, where “ego journalism” is practiced big time.

For example, the co-star of every Barbara Walters interview is Barbara Walters. Some time ago I proposed a new show for her titled “Me,” in which a different celebrity would interview her each week: “Tonight, Julia Roberts shares secrets about Barbara’s life, loves, secrets and regrets.”

So I was really steamed when Katharine Hepburn stole “Me” as the title for her new autobiography, which was hyped in her recent interview with Walters on ABC’s “20/20.” Kate, Spencer, Kate, Spencer. Enough! What I wanted to hear about was what parties Barbara had attended lately. And what about those regrets?

The NBC News program “Today” shares my belief that hosts--the network’s own, that is--are the story. On Monday, Bryant Gumbel interviewed John Tesh, the “Entertainment Tonight” co-host who less than two hours later would be appearing on NBC at 10 a.m. as the star of “One on One With John Tesh,” a new weekday celebrity interview series from the newer, softer NBC News. On “Today” that morning, Tesh performed with his band and shared his views about Tesh.

After acknowledging that this typical network self-promotion was a “puff piece”--Tesh and his new NBC News series would be headline news only to NBC News--Gumbel said he felt obliged to ask Tesh just why he thought TV needed yet another show on which celebrities talk about themselves.

Gumbel was not exactly coming from strength here, in that “Today” this week has been airing its own five-part Hepburn interview with “Today” co-host Katie Couric, titled “Katie and Kate.” Notice who comes first.

Kate, Spencer, Kate, Spencer . Enough! What I wanted to know about was Katie’s new baby.

Anyway, back to Gumbel and his allusion to the irrelevance of “One on One.” Tesh appeared flustered. No one told him that Gumbel would ask a real question. Finally, Tesh gathered himself and replied that viewers would have to see for themselves.

I did that, recoiling in horror Monday as the ruthless Tesh got Twiggy to admit that raising kids was hard work, then again Tuesday as he ground Zsa Zsa into the carpet of her Bel-Air mansion by demanding to hear about her “wonderful life.” But what I really wanted to know was what Tesh thought about Mary Hart’s legs.

Moreover, I watched admiringly as assistant interviewer Sandie Newton disclosed to Marcee Walker that she was “shocked that you would actually have the guts to leave a show” like the NBC soap “Santa Barbara” for the new prime-time series “Palace Guard.” I envied the brazen way Newton got Walker to admit, “I’m definitely not perfect.”

But what I really wanted to know was if anything else had shocked Newton as much as Walker’s move to a new series whose network (CBS) was curiously omitted from “One on One.” Watergate? The Soviet coup d’etat ? Murphy Brown getting pregnant?

Monday also brought the debut of that Maury Povich talk show on Channel 2. Yet weeks before Maury (I feel we all know him well enough now to address him by first name) had launched his first question, viewers of his oft-run promos had already learned from his own lips that he was the happiest guy in the world and that it was Connie who informed him when they could get married.

So what I really wanted to know as I watched his first show was not about his guests Debbie and Cindy, who were married to a guy named Jay at the same time, or about the minister who performed the wedding ceremony for his own parents. What I really wanted to know about was Maury’s life with Connie.

I wanted to know about “the experience of a lifetime” that had gotten Maury to this point. Did he and Connie neck on their first date? What color was their carpeting?

Maury said he wanted to know how Jay “was able to handle all this.” What I wanted to know was how Maury was able to handle all this humility. During a station break, he appeared in another promo, standing in a kitchen over some food on a counter--I guess preparing dinner for himself and Connie. “I’ve spent my whole life being ready,” he said about “The Maury Povich Show.” I guess you could call that overpreparation.

From a videotape of “The Chuck Woolery Show,” another celebrity talk series that will premiere at 1 p.m. Monday on KCAL Channel 9, I learned that one of Woolery’s best friends is Mac Davis, that their wives are “absolutely” best friends, that he calls Davis in the morning, that he’s a lousier golfer than Davis, that he once redecorated his house and “it was the pits,” and that he’s redecorating it again.

I resented it when Woolery departed from his biography to interview his guests.

Finally, there’s Geraldo Rivera, whose weekday talk show airs at 4 p.m. on Channel 2 and whose new magazine show, “Now It Can Be Told,” is on weeknights at 7 on KTLA Channel 5.

“Nobody is sacred, nobody is untouchable!” Rivera declared noisily before opening his Monday premiere with an interview of former President Gerald Ford. “Today,” he vowed, “I’ll put the tough questions to the man myself.” That’s right, no trusting Ford to an underling.

And indeed, Rivera proved himself by brutally getting Ford to reveal that he believed his pardoning of Richard Nixon was correct, that reports of his wealth were exaggerated and that his golf game still stinks.

Then Rivera showed just how merciless he could be by flat-out telling Ford right to his face: “If I get to be your age, I hope that I look the way you do.” Ford was shocked. I was shocked. Sandie Newton would have been shocked.

However, instead of this and the thin profile of a cost-conscious senator that followed, I wanted to hear more of the alleged sexual exploits that Rivera details in his new autobiography, “Exposing Myself.” Did he use satin sheets? Has he ever double-dated with Maury and Connie?

That’s the report on “ego journalism.” I know what you’re thinking. This is a real snappy column that is lacking in only one thing: Not enough me! I promise to rectify that in the future.