When TV Looks for News in the Mirror

Yes, please, let’s never forget we’re the real story . . .

--Caustic TV reporter Aaron Altman in the movie “Broadcast News”

Wednesday marked the start of the February ratings sweeps, which inevitably become local anchor sweeps.

It’s a period in which most stations make their newscasts vehicles for self-promotion even more than usual, dispatching studio-bound news celebrities into the real world, where (with crucial assistance from unseen field producers) they attempt to sell themselves to viewers as real journalists the way fast-talking hucksters go door-to-door selling aluminum siding.

There are exceptions to the tailored-for-promotion mini-docs that invade newscasts during sweeps, one of them being this week’s strong investigative series--exposing “food stamp fraud”--by a KTTV-TV Channel 11 unit led by reporter Chris Blatchford.

Local stations have toned down their sweeps series in recent years. No more lesbian nuns. In the main, though, it’s self-glorification as usual.

At KABC-TV Channel 7 Wednesday, meteorologist Dallas Raines began an exclusive three-part series reporting in detail about an “Eyewitness News” job that he said presented an enormous challenge, a job with which he was highly familiar.

His.

“Tonight, we’ll look at the tools that help me meet that challenge.”

“Tomorrow, I show you how my day gets so exciting.”

It starts in front of the mirror.

Also at Channel 7, anchor Harold Greene was out in the field eye-witnessing “the effort to make our schools safe for our children.”

At KCAL-TV Channel 9, Tawny Little was starting her series on “how you can live longer,” although you may have been skeptical about her actual involvement in the reporting when you initially only heard her (“Can you imagine living to be 150 years old?”) without seeing her.

At KCBS-TV Channel 2, Chris Conangla was scheduled to be out in the field Thursday for his “Real Life-Home Alone” series about the dangers to “little shut-ins,” a sort of spinoff from Wednesday’s Channel 2 report on baby-snatching that tied in with that day’s “Geraldo.”

Or was Channel 2 copying KNBC-TV Channel 4, which itself was already hot on the trail of “little shut-ins.” It dared not entrust this series to a regular reporter. Veteran David Garcia, for example, was tied up doing his own 11 p.m. series on psychics, somehow managing to keep a straight face while asking such questions as “Who are they, and why are more and more people asking their advice?”

No, you needed no psychic to tell you that Channel 4 had only one person to whom it could confidently assign this series. “Tonight, my special report on the epidemic of ‘home alone’ kids and what all parents need to know about that,” announced Paul Moyer.

When we last checked Moyer during a ratings sweeps month, he was among the ordinary people, jaw-to-jaw with minorities, getting the word on the street (in front of a TV camera) about what was coming down. This week, he was worrying about little kids.

There he was Wednesday rehashing recent news for amnesiac viewers, walking toward us in a parking lot where a Korean-American tot was left alone in a car by a mother who was shopping. The woman was accused of child endangerment.

There was Moyer with a camera and a Korean-speaking interpreter walking up to the mother’s home. No luck. “She won’t talk,” the interpreter told him. Maybe that was the headline:

Woman Won’t Talk to Paul.

Channel 4 did run some footage of her with her child. And Moyer weighed in about the law.

“Interesting stuff,” said his co-anchor, Wendy Takuda.

If it was such interesting stuff, then why did Channel 4 wait until Wednesday, the start of the February ratings period, to present it? Or more accurately, rehash it?

In case anyone is running out of ideas for sweeps mini-docs, meanwhile, here are a few ideas:

* Channel 4 weathercaster Fritz Coleman preparing his jokes.

* Channel 2 newsroom pugilists--anchor Michael Tuck and news director John Lippman--training for a rematch.

* The Eyewitness Newsvan getting a lube job.

* Dallas Raines not only preparing his forecast but, as a bonus, preparing his hair.

Well, you could go on and on. And, of course, they will.

Sure Hits: Year after year, I labor over my program proposals. And year after year, the television industry rejects my best advice. So why do I keep beating my head against this wall? Because I really care.

Thus, once again, here is a batch of programs that TV should be airing:

* “Phantom of Oprah”: The famous talk-show host’s Chicago studio is haunted by a mysterious masked figure who one day abducts her and vows to keep her hostage in his subterranean hide-out until she reveals the formula for her ratings success. In a climactic scene, Oprah rips off the mask and finds herself looking into the hideously tormented face of Phil Donahue.

* “Madonnahue”: A bold talk show concept in which Donahue, who once wore a dress to hype ratings for his present show, continues to operate from the studio audience, this time cross-dressing in female underwear.

* “Rush Howard Sternbaugh”: A sitcom about a radio talk-show host who not only constantly criticizes female left-wingers but also requires them to disrobe and play butt bongo on the air.

* “Alien: The TV Movie”: A science-fiction drama in which the Joint Chiefs of Staff go on a fact-finding space journey, only to crash in a distant solar system where, unbeknown to them, their bodies are inhabited by the spores of heterosexual-devouring gay aliens. Unaware of what they are carrying, they repair their spacecraft and return to the United States, ultimately creating havoc among the military. Don’t miss the shower and fox hole sequences.

* “The Army’s Most Wanted”: Hosted by Sen. Strom Thurmond (R-S.C.), a reality half-hour presenting information about soldiers suspected of being gay.

* “Cisco and Ebert”: America’s favorite movie critics make a few changes on their series in the interest of ethnic diversity.

* “The Jackie Compost Show”: An urbane, politically sophisticated sitcom about a crude TV comedy star and his powerful producer-wife. In the pilot, Jackie and his wife take a courageous First Amendment stand by threatening to walk out when the network refuses to allow him to defecate on camera.