KCBS’ Tuck: Look Who’s Talking : Television: Channel 2 anchor’s attack on Channel 7 for mixing news and entertainment is like pot calling kettle black.

Not only does KCBS-TV Channel 2 anchor Michael Tuck read from a TelePrompTer with a big, booming voice but--as his Sunday night commentary on “Action News” proved--he is also a great comic.

The target of his moral outrage this time was a competitor, KABC-TV Channel 7’s “Eyewitness News,” which on Wednesday had devoted its entire 11 p.m. newscast, minus weather and sports, to that night’s preceding Oprah Winfrey-Michael Jackson interview on ABC.

Tuck was steamed. It was like Idi Amin complaining that Al Capone had gone too far.

“Yeah, I’ll admit it right up front,” Tuck said about local news in general. “Even though we do manage to wedge in some legitimate news, there are still lots of nights some of us feel like journalistic streetwalkers.”

All right, so you do a little hooking. But what those Caligulas at Channel 7 had done, said Tuck, sounding mortified, devastated, personally violated, was. . . .

“PROSTITUTE THEIR NEWSCAST!”

You really felt for Tuck, who was obviously suffering. TV news tie-ins with entertainment programs are a “standard trick” of the business, Tuck acknowledged. “All stations,” he added, “do a story here or there just to hype their ratings.” But, again, what Channel 7 had done--well, Tuck’s deeply felt lament about the behavior of “Eyewitness News” spoke for itself.

“That what we’ve come to in this business, in pursuit of the almighty rating. . . .”

How disillusioning this must have been for Tuck, who, in the heat of writing his commentary, must have forgotten that his own station had attached itself to the Winfrey-Jackson interview like a blood-sucker, making it the “Top Story” on Thursday’s “Action News” at 5 p.m., splurging 15 minutes plus a phone-in poll asking viewers if they believed Jackson had told Winfrey the truth. Yes, no prostitution there.

And what was that Tuck said about stations doing a story “here and there” solely to hype ratings? Once again his memory failed him, for there have been standing orders for months at Channel 2 to prepare and promote a daily story on its 5 p.m. newscast to tie-in with the same pandering subject on the preceding “Geraldo” program. One day last week, that meant slapping together something on transsexuals.

Moreover, it was Channel 2 that in the aftermath of last April’s Los Angeles riots created the ultimate news-entertainment tie-in by having Geraldo Rivera co-anchor an “Action News” program with Chris Conangla and Tritia Toyota.

Meanwhile, what about the Great Guardian of Journalistic Ethics himself? Not long ago, Tuck did voice-over narration for an already packaged Channel 2 story on earthquake safety (“In my special report,” he began . . .) that consisted of interviews with quake experts, capped by a Tuck stand-up in the field.

“Of course, the payoff for the millions of dollars invested in this equipment comes when the ‘big one’ hits this particular stretch of the San Andreas Fault,” said Tuck, motioning with his right hand toward the brushy area behind him.

Actually, Channel 2 sources report, Tuck was many miles from the San Andreas Fault. Instead, he was speaking to Los Angeles from the Forest Lawn cemetery near Griffith Park.

Maybe that was one of those days when he felt like a journalistic streetwalker.

‘zDateline NBC’ Postscript: The startling admission by NBC News that crash tests of General Motors pickup trucks were rigged for a “Dateline NBC” episode raised questions about the “tabloiding” of the news division and the employees it had been hiring.

In that regard, it should be noted that Robert Read, producer for the “Dateline” segment that caused all the furor, was hired by NBC News from the syndicated tabloid series “Inside Edition.”

Quotes: All columnists save quotes. Here is my personal close-out on quotes relating to television that I’ve set aside but never been able to use.

The first is from the boss in “The Harder They Fall” commenting on the gullibility of the public: “The people, the little people, they sit in front of the television set, get fat and fall asleep, their bellies full of beer. That’s the people.”

Next come quotes from the film “Broadcast News.”

Jane (the news producer): “You’re not well-educated, you have almost no experience and you can’t write.”

Tom (the future anchor): “And I’m making a fortune.”

And. . . .

Aaron (a reporter commenting on Jane feeding information electronically to Tom during a live report): “What’s the next thing, lip syncing?”

And finally, something directly applicable to the notorious “Dateline NBC” incident. . . .

Washington news executive: “There’s a recklessness in the air.”