Ads and Journalists: Crossover a Cloudy Issue : Television: Is there a problem when ex-anchors such as Mary Alice Williams and Kathleen Sullivan make commercials? The issue troubles some journalism professionals.

Dressed in a pullover sweater, an overweight Kathleen Sullivan surveys a thinner version of herself on TV as co-anchor of “CBS This Morning.” “One moment I’m a network anchor--now look at me,” says Sullivan, patting her stomach.

It’s not a newscast--it’s a TV commercial. Sullivan, the first female anchor of the Olympics and a former news anchor at both ABC and CBS, has been hired as the national spokesperson for SuperStart, a new weight-loss program from Weight Watchers International. Over the next year, Sullivan will be seen in TV commercials, radio spots and public appearances as part of a $35-million campaign to introduce the product.

Meanwhile, in another media campaign launching this month, Mary Alice Williams, a former CNN vice president and news anchor at both CNN and NBC, is doing TV commercials, radio spots and public speaking as the national spokeswoman for NYNEX, the Northeast regional telecommunications company.

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Williams, who has signed a three-year contract with NYNEX for an undisclosed sum, is cast as the knowledgeable “explainer” of telecommunications today. “NYNEX will be the name for a lot of the new things that will make your life more manageable,” Williams says in a TV ad currently airing. “My job is to stay on top of what they’re doing and keep you posted.”

The commercials by Sullivan and Williams raise anew questions about the separation between advertising and editorial content in television today. The line is growing increasingly blurry: There are TV commercials featuring actors as anchors who “report” the merits of cold remedies, while real-life TV anchors attend the baby shower of fictional TV anchor “Murphy Brown,” and Candice Bergen, who plays Murphy, brings her hard-nosed TV persona to her job as TV spokeswoman for the Sprint Corp.

Sullivan and Williams note that they are not working as network journalists today. But the advertising executives who hired them say that their credibility from TV news was a big factor in their being hired as TV pitchwomen. It’s a practice that disturbs some journalists.

“The advertisers in these commercials are trading on the credibility of the anchors and the network news divisions,” said Dick Wald, senior vice president at ABC News. “There is a close relationship between journalists and the news division, and each one shares in the credibility of the other. Our position is that what we say as journalists is not for sale.”

ABC News, along with CBS News, NBC News and Cable News Network, prohibits its journalists from making TV commercials.

“I must admit it was a jolt to me to see a former CNN executive in a commercial,” said Joan Konner, dean of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

“I think journalists should be allowed to make career choices to go into acting, catering or whatever they want to do without criticism from their colleagues,” Konner said. “But, at the same time, it is troubling to me to see advertisers and journalists trading on the credibility, authenticity and integrity that journalists have built up by being newscasters.”

Williams, 44, who spent 25 years in TV news, makes a distinction between doing commercials as a journalist and making TV spots after leaving the business.

“I am not presenting myself as a dispassionate observer, and I am not trying to do both journalism and (my NYNEX work) at the same time,” she said. “When I left NBC News last fall to form my own marketing and TV production company, I felt that I had to make the decision that I was leaving network news, even though Barbara Walters and others told me that might not be the case in today’s environment. I am not selling Post-Toasties in these commercials--I’m talking about a company that I believe in, and I’m involved in an exciting new field, the information superhighway.”

Williams maintained that, at least in terms of public speaking, there are some similarities between her NYNEX job and her work as an executive at CNN in the early days.

“In the beginning at CNN, I spoke to cable operators and city officials about CNN,” Williams said. “I don’t think my public speaking for NYNEX is all that different.”

Sullivan, 40, who lost her job on “CBS This Morning” in 1989 when she was replaced by Paula Zahn, said that she had not considered whether her Weight Watchers job would prevent any possible return to network news.

“I believe in the Weight Watchers program,” she said. “The diet is working for me, and I believe that I am helpful other women” with the commercial campaign.

Sullivan, who also does health reports on a syndicated TV series called “Life Choices,” said she had gained weight when she went through a very difficult period in her life: She lost her CBS job, her father died and her marriage broke up.

“We wanted Kathleen because she is articulate and knowledgeable, and her work as a newscaster gives her both celebrity and credibility,” said Jeff Myers, vice president for integrated marketing and communications at Weight Watchers International. “The fact that even a prominent woman can struggle with weight also makes her someone that many women can identify with.”

After she left CBS, Sullivan said, she was offered large salaries to be an anchor on “Inside Edition” and “A Current Affair.” “I didn’t want to do those shows because they’re tabloids,” she said. “I think the standards of accuracy in the Weight Watchers commercials are better than some of what goes on in TV news.”

Even with the networks’ strong prohibitions against commercials by newscasters, there are some loopholes in the system. “Today” weatherman Willard Scott is allowed to make commercials (and he makes many of them) because he is not considered a journalist, according to an NBC News spokeswoman. Joan Lunden, co-anchor of ABC’s “Good Morning America,” was allowed to make a lotion commercial because the morning show is a production of the network’s entertainment division, not ABC News. (ABC’s Wald said that he would not allow Lunden to make any commercials if it were his call to make.) And Charles Osgood, who makes an estimated $1 million a year as the primary voice and anchor on CBS radio, does some ads in his daily radio newscasts. Although he still appears occasionally on “CBS This Morning,” Osgood is allowed to make commercials because he is now an employee of the CBS radio network and and not CBS News, the network says.

With TV journalists having become superstars and advertisers realizing the value of their credibility, the opportunities for high-profile ad campaigns will grow, and with them the ethical questions for journalists. Mike Wallace did commercials as a young broadcaster (he had to convince CBS News that he wanted a serious career in journalism), but the door swung only one way. Would a network today hire a former news anchor who had done commercials and wanted to come back to network news?

“We recently had Linda Ellerbee as the special anchor for an ABC News documentary on breast cancer, a subject on which she is an expert,” Wald responded. (Ellerbee did a much-criticized commercial for Maxwell House coffee several years ago after leaving NBC News; she is now an independent producer). “We’d have to look at that as one factor in hiring somebody. I don’t think it absolutely would rule someone out, but it certainly would make them harder to place.”