The Turmoil Continues in Channel 2’s Newsroom

Earth to Lippman! Earth to Lippman!

Working at KCBS-TV these days must be like having an out-of-body experience. How positively daffy are things getting at Channel 2’s “Action News” under its infamous new tabloid-driven news director, John Lippman? As the case of Chris Blatchford affirms, very daffy.

Blatchford, one of the city’s best TV reporters, was in the Channel 2 newsroom Wednesday when his wife called from home to say he had just received a registered letter from Lippman saying that the station would not renew his lapsing four-year contract. KCBS is required to give written notice of termination.

In his letter, Lippman wrote: “We have elected not to renew the agreement for a further extended term.” There was no explanation.

To Blatchford, this meant dismissal. And nothing he heard from Lippman in their subsequent talks changed his mind, although he says Lippman did offer to keep him “for a while” as a non-contract per-diem reporter if he needed the money. Blatchford decided against the per-diem offer, and was already eyeing other employment options when. . . .

In response Friday to a columnist’s inquiry about why Lippman would discharge an award-winning journalist, KCBS released a two-paragraph statement offering no reason, but saying self-contradictingly that Channel 2 wasn’t going to renew Blatchford’s contract . . . but that it was.

The statement says that prior to sending Blatchford the letter, Lippman “attempted to explain to Chris that his contract would not be renewed.” But in the next paragraph, the statement adds that Lippman “has chosen to delay some major decisions, like Chris’ contract renewal, temporarily. John will be finalizing arrangements with Chris in the near future. We hope Chris will be interested in working with us then.”

Now it’s clear. The registered letter was sent by a gremlin, and Blatchford’s contract--the one that will not be renewed--will be renewed. Unless it isn’t. In that case, it will be.

Blatchford said that as far as he’s concerned, he’s still fired.

Channel 2’s shabby handling of Blatchford makes about as much sense as some of the frothy news stories that apparently have helped drive up “Action News” ratings under Lippman. You get the impression that people are watching for the same reason they’re drawn to midway freak shows.

“Channel 2 has lost its moral center,” said Blatchford, who has been at KCBS for seven years. “It’s a total race for the numbers (ratings) and tabloids. I was looking around anyway because I’ve been so sickened by what’s going on at the station.”

What helped sour him, Blatchford said, was being told to do a Lippman-ordered story about another Channel 2 reporter who had been shot at while on assignment. “It was exploitation,” Blatchford said. “I felt I was being told to do some riveting story about how ‘Action News’ was getting shot at in the street, and I wanted no part of it.” Blatchford said that after protesting vigorously, he was pulled off the story by the assignment desk.

Blatchford, 45, has done KCBS proud. While there, he won two Golden Mike awards, two Associated Press awards and three Emmys, and was nominated for seven other Emmys. In 1988, he won a Peabody--arguably the most coveted award in broadcasting--for his investigative reporting of an alleged East Coast Mafia figure’s activity inside MCA Records.

That year, KCBS thought so highly of Blatchford that it gave him a four-year no-cut contract, a rarity in a business where stations usually retain renewal options at intervals of up to a year.

Regardless of the doublespeak now spewing from Channel 2, Lippman’s own staff was so convinced last week that he had fired Blatchford, sources say, that some newsroom adventurists expressed their anger about it by plastering the news director’s car with photos of Blatchford.

The act of defiance was further evidence of a mini-revolt against Lippman, whose raunchy news policies and reportedly brutal management style have alienated many of his staff since his arrival seven weeks ago from Seattle.

Cutting loose Blatchford would bolster reports--denied by Lippman--that one way the news director plans to cut costs at Channel 2 is to replace experienced reporters with greener, lower-salaried ones from small markets.

That mentality has been resonating elsewhere too. Already this year, for example, KNBC Channel 4 has ejected valuable news veterans John Marshall and Bill Lagatutta. Thus, Lippman is just the latest painful abrasion on a business going through a grim period. It’s one in which good people are vanishing and being replaced by people who are not yet good and may never be.