Sam Rubin Gets an Offer He Can’t Refuse : Television: The KTLA-TV entertainment reporter accepts a bit role on ‘The Jackie Thomas Show.’ He and the station see no conflict of interest.

Sam Rubin, KTLA-TV Channel 5’s puckish entertainment reporter, says he sees no breach of journalistic ethics in his accepting an acting role on Tom Arnold’s new sitcom after helping the actor publicize the show when he interviewed Tom and Roseanne Arnold in their bed a couple of weeks ago on “The KTLA Morning News.”

“It’s a very legitimate question and I can understand the objection to it, but I have been critical of the Arnolds in the past and I will be in future,” said Rubin, who will be paid “scale”--$466--for his performance, which will be taped in the next week or two. “And it’s just a two-line walk-on. I’m not making big money for this. I could make a lot more selling a nasty article on the Arnolds somewhere.”

Warren Cereghino, KTLA’s news director, said that he did not see the situation as a “major problem,” in part because Rubin does not maintain a “Walter Cronkite kind of persona” but rather a more fun-loving, can-you-believe this attitude toward the industry he covers.

“And I don’t think Sam will ever compromise his integrity in reporting honestly, accurately and fairly on people in the entertainment industry,” Cereghino said. “If it becomes a conflict in the future, then it will have to be reviewed.”

Rubin did not review Arnold’s “The Jackie Thomas Show” prior to its debut Tuesday. But while raving about the show’s ratings on Thursday’s edition of “The KTLA Morning News,” Rubin scoffed at newspaper reporters questioning his ethics and then, “to prove that no one owns me,” proceeded to give a lukewarm review of Arnold’s first episode, though he added that the show holds “promise.”

Rubin conceded that if some other newscaster had “blurred the line” by accepting a job from someone he covers on his regular beat, Rubin probably would ridicule that journalist for it on the air. But he added that he--and KTLA weatherman Mark Kriski--accepted the one-time roles on “The Jackie Thomas Show” to give their news program an opportunity to report from the inside on what goes into producing a weekly sitcom.