King Trial Coverage Paints L.A.’s Picture

TV or not TV. . . .

IMAGES: As the wait for the verdicts in the Rodney G. King trial mounted, one thing seemed certain.

Regardless of the outcome, the image of Los Angeles--flashed instantly around the world by television--would be fixed for years to come.

Would the recurrent nightmares of the 1965 Watts uprising and last year’s riots reaffirm even more permanently what Los Angeles now represents to many? Or would the city’s reputation get a reprieve?

The stakes were monumentally high.

No matter what, the glamorous images of paradise--still projected in old films on TV through such upbeat songs as “California, Here I Come” and “Hooray for Hollywood”--now seemed gone forever and faintly ridiculous at best amid today’s reality.

Is it all gone? How do we react now to such lyrics as “I’m gonna settle down and never more roam and make the San Fernando Valley my home”?

In today’s TV-saturated world, nothing would seem more important for local stations than to give added and intense coverage to L.A.’s new multiculturalism and find the promises and images that propel the dreams of the 1990s generation--and that means all of us.

We have been challenged by the new California reality for years now, but our local TV stations have become more inane, superficial and sensationalistic just when we needed them most.

What is painful is that with all their daily air time--consider the three-hour evening newscasts alone, for instance--these stations have an incredible opportunity to help constructively shape the future of Los Angeles.

And yet, as one of our friends noted shortly before the King case went to the jury during the weekend, some stations were playing the story as if it were a buildup for the Super Bowl.

Over at KCBS-TV Channel 2, for example, an announcer with a high-powered, super-macho voice and tone constantly promoted how the station would cover the verdicts--a hype approach just when a lower-key, calmer delivery was called for.

As you listened, you hoped that when the verdicts did come down, there would be a different tone, less grating and aggressive. But you wondered what the press of ratings competition would do to even the best-intended commercial stations.

You wished that all TV rundowns would be titled with as much restraint as KNBC-TV Channel 4’s “Preparing for the Verdicts.” Alas, that was not typical of the tone and attitude of either KNBC or the other local network outlets as the waiting continued.

They tried to have their cake and eat it too.

In one report Friday, KABC-TV Channel 7 presented an interview that suggested the future might see drive-by shootings of “Brady Bunch” middle-class families--certainly a possibility. The station then announced a project called “Together” to help foster peace in L.A.--a fine idea that unfortunately came across as insensitively blending the frightening with the altruistic.

As Angelenos awaited the verdict, there were dramatic moments on TV. Time and again, those interviewed seemed increasingly sophisticated about media sensationalism. And in Compton on Saturday, a woman told a KNBC reporter that people were saying, “Let’s keep it good in the ‘hood.”

Still, the Super Bowl-style buildup continued. Curiously, there was a certain community bonding experience that only television can generate in a crisis. But in this case, because of TV, the community was national, and perhaps global. And the verdicts--and local reaction to them--would paint the portrait of the city in the eyes of many.

PRIME TIME: The appointment of CBS’ Andrew Lack as the latest president of NBC News does not seem to bode well for drama series on NBC.

Lack, who had been executive producer of CBS’ “Street Stories,” said in an interview on Charlie Rose’s late-night PBS talk series Friday that there will be more prime-time news magazines in the future.

Most network news magazines are broadcast in the later prime-time hours often occupied by drama series, and have been displacing them. Reality shows are much cheaper to produce than film dramas.

Lack, by the way, referred to his new boss, Robert Wright, as the chairman of NBC. He’s not. He’s the president.

ANOTHER WORLD: In the realm of fiction, Jean Stapleton is on view tonight at 10 on the Arts & Entertainment cable channel in Paddy Campbell’s “The Parallax Garden,” hosted by Lauren Bacall for the “Playwrights Theater” series.

With Judge Reinhold and Beverly D’Angelo as her son and daughter-in-law, the former “All in the Family” star plays a droll eccentric whose husband has left for a younger woman. With her life in disarray, she builds a scarecrow who comes to have a special meaning for her.

“Cable is the place now for trying quality material,” she says. “Networks are just interested in lurid stories or disease-of-the-week movies. I get many letters saying, ‘We miss you on television. When are you coming back?’ I’d consider an hour series if it had substance.”

But theater is where she’s at. Next: Moliere’s “The Learned Ladies,” opening in San Francisco’s American Conservatory Theater April 21.

SPLIT DECISIONS: “A League of Their Own” struck out as comedy in its debut as a CBS series Saturday, but “Brooklyn Bridge” was still as good as gold in its return. “League,” however, did reasonably well in the overnight big-city ratings.

Meanwhile, the network, which said last week it had a 13-episode order for Chuck Norris’ modern Western, “Walker, Texas Ranger,” has to rethink its plans after confirming the heavily promoted program is up in the air because of financing problems. As of now, there’s a special debut April 21, with several more episodes starting Saturdays April 24.

THE WAY IT WAS: The landmark nightly Los Angeles series “The Big News,” which aired on KNXT-TV Channel 2 (now KCBS) in the medium’s earlier years, will be recalled by the UCLA Film and Television Archive in an evening presentation April 22. Information: (310) 206-FILM.

DRAWING BOARD: A spokeswoman for KTTV-TV Channel 11 says the station plans to launch its daily 7-9 a.m. local news show this summer, competing head-on with network series such as “Today” and the successful “Morning News” on KTLA-TV Channel 5.

BEING THERE: “Fear cannot save us. Rage cannot help us. We must see the stranger in a new light--the light of understanding.”--Control Voice in “The Outer Limits.”