TELEVISION : What the Big Guys Think of MTV News

Network news executives differ in their reaction to MTV News.

Steve Friedman, executive producer of “NBC Nightly News,” sees value in MTV tailoring its approach to young viewers.

But Ed Turner, vice president in charge of news gathering for Cable News Network, is concerned that viewers weaned on MTV’s high-octane mix of entertainment, news and opinion may not have an appetite for duller, straighter stuff.

“Young people identify with celebrities, and the ‘rockumentaries’ are a good idea because they speak the MTV viewers’ language and talk about their culture,” Friedman said. “I think their newscast is pretty responsible, although they seem to be pushing more of a liberal agenda than broadcast news.”

Friedman believes that it is a good idea for the network newscasts to do stories about education, AIDS and other issues of interest to young people. But he doubts that an interest in MTV’s rock star-oriented news will translate into an interest in the broadcast networks’ nightly newscasts.

“With MTV News, you’re talking about the ‘tweeners’ (between teens and 20s)--they’re not going to watch our program, anyway,” he said. “We have to wait for them to grow a little older and hope that, as with previous generations so far, their interests will change and mature.”

One area where MTV News may be having an impact, however, is in the new generation of newsmagazines on broadcast TV. Friedman, who is overseeing NBC’s spring entry, “Dateline NBC,” with Jane Pauley and Stone Phillips as co-anchors, said that these programs may reflect more of a youth orientation than their predecessors. “If we’re going to cover a disease like uterine cancer, we may tell that story from the viewpoint of someone who’s taking care of a parent who has that disease,” he said.

CNN’s Turner is less accepting of what MTV is doing.

“It’s not news in a traditional sense,” he said. “It’s a polemic, with a point of view that tends to come from the liberal side. What’s worrisome is that they’re using the cache of news on an unsuspecting, non-reading generation. I fear that not only will (audiences raised on MTV News) have an appetite for news at a frenetic pace, with all the glitter of entertainment--but that they won’t be able to discern between opinion as news and news as news.”

Two ABC News executives declined to comment on MTV News, saying that they did not like to talk about the work of other organizations. David Corvo, a vice president at CBS News, said that he had not seen any of MTV News’ programming but knew they were venturing onto the campaign trail. “I’m glad to hear they’re doing election coverage,” he said. “If they can help get young people interested in the elections and in voting, that would be good.”