News Tie-Ins --Hype at 11 : Local television newscasts have long been promoting the so-called ‘real stories’ linked to their network entertainment shows. But now there’s a new twist.

Selling phony news--the real story.

It’s no jolt when a television station tries to lure viewers to its local newscast through deception, especially by trumping up a news “story” to coincide with a preceding entertainment program. Although using news as self-promotion is unethical by any standard, the practice occurs routinely on TV, notably during those ratings sweeps periods--like November--that are especially crucial in determining the rates stations charge for commercial time.

Example: On Monday, KCBS-TV Channel 2 staged yet another “exclusive” interview of Geraldo Rivera (this time with his wife) for its 5 p.m. newscast, which follows his syndicated “Geraldo” talk show.

Inspired perhaps by KABC-TV Channel 7’s ingenious news promotions for Oprah Winfrey, Channel 2 has become positively relentless in its efforts to dredge up alleged news stories that relate to that day’s “Geraldo” topic. If only the station were as resourceful at covering legitimate news as it is in thinking of ways to fool the public.

Bad enough.

But now comes the double scam: Channel 2 hoping to inflate its news audience by slapping together “stories” tied not only to a program on its own network, but also to one on a competing network.

What was the “real story” behind “The Jacksons: An American Dream,” Sunday’s ABC biography of Michael Jackson’s dysfunctional family?

What was the “real story” behind “When No One Would Listen,” Sunday’s CBS docudrama depicting a battered woman’s futile attempts to convince authorities that her estranged husband sought to murder her?

Incredibly, those sleuths at Channel 2--a station owned by CBS--had both “real” stories.

“You saw the movie, now see the real story,” Channel 2 anchor Penny Griego declared Sunday night about the CBS drama on the battered woman who ultimately was murdered by her husband. The “real story,” presented on the 11 p.m. newscast, turned out to be nothing more than a rehash showing the actual characters.

And what about that ABC account of the Jacksons, whose first of two installments ran opposite the CBS movie? “The real story of the Jacksons--what the miniseries didn’t tell you,” Griego announced just prior to the 11 p.m. newscast.

Griego’s co-anchor, Hosea Sanders, had the scoop.

“We wanted to know if the story we’re seeing is more fiction than fact,” he said. “We found out the answer is not as simple as ABC.” Very cute.

What viewers found out, however, was that there was no story. Oh, that psychospewing shrink for hire, Joyce Brothers, weighed in on the Jacksons. So did a columnist for that tabloid rag, the Star. And La Toya Jackson repeated her charge that patriarch Joseph Jackson was scum. Hitting the road for this assignment, Sanders got La Toya on the run in Las Vegas.

So why even bother? Channel 2 was apparently trying both to hold the CBS movie audience for its late news and to hook viewers of ABC’s “The Jacksons” who happened to be channel switching at the 11 p.m. station break.

The strategy wasn’t unopposed, however, for Channel 7--rarely to be outdone when it comes to making news a slave to hyperbole and promotion--was doing its own Jacksons tie-in at 11 p.m.

KABC returned to the Jacksons again in its 5 p.m. Monday newscast, in advance of its Jacksons news tie-in scheduled for tonight in conjunction with Part 2 of the miniseries.

Meanwhile, the lead-in for KNBC-TV Channel 4’s newscast at 11 p.m. Monday was an NBC docudrama about a mother’s quest to prosecute the woman responsible for the death of her toddler son. Channel 4 anchor Wendy Tokuda introduced the news tie-in: “The real mom behind NBC’s movie, ‘A Child Lost Forever.’ ”

News integrity: Lost forever?

First Things First: The current issue of the weekly trade journal Electronic Media carries a two-column classified item from Fox-owned KRIV-TV in Houston advertising for a department manager. The ad emphasizes that “station-level priorities” demand that the successful applicant “develop ideas compatible with the station’s ongoing promotional and public-service campaigns.”

The employee “also must be in sync with the sales objectives of the station with willingness to help develop modules and series with sales potential.” In addition, the person “must have a strong sense of news promotion and ability to work well with the promotion department on special projects, daily promotions and series.”

Modules? Sales potential? Promotion? How priorities have changed in this modern era of electronic communications, where selling the product takes precedence over the content of the product.

The job opening at KRIV is for a news director.

Closing Thought: It comes from poet-journalist William Cullen Bryant: “The press is a mill that grinds all that is put into its hopper. Fill the hopper with poisoned grain and it will grind it to meal, but there is death in the bread.”