Move Over, Woodward & Bernstein : Radio: Exposing Watergate was easy compared to exposing yourself to Howard Stern for the sake of discussing his latest TV deal.

First he makes fun of your last name. Then he asks all manner of racy, personal questions.

It’s just another morning for Howard Stern in the pursuit of lively radio. But for this reporter, granted an “exclusive interview” on the air, it was about as much fun as having a root canal.

When Stern turns his quick wit and dirty mind your way, the natural instinct is to run for cover. Especially when the self-proclaimed “king of all media” regally demands that his media subjects conduct interviews on his terms--in this case live, on the air and at an ungodly pre-dawn hour (because of the time difference between here and New York, where he broadcasts).

The “exclusive” opportunity I was granted--after four years of requesting a personal interview and being turned down--was really just another instance of Stern making unabashed use of the media for self-promotional purposes.

In other words, it was Howard being Howard in the most Howardly way he knows how.

The occasion Wednesday was Stern’s announcement to his radio listeners of a deal he’d made to do a daily series for the E! Entertainment Television cable network. Stern deigned to put up with some questions from a reporter for the greater good of celebrating “the start of something amazing.”

“I thought it would be nice to have somebody from the media on the phone with us to listen in on my big news who could ask intelligent questions,” Stern explained on the air.

He was much more interested in my anatomy than my questions, it turned out. This much I did learn: The cable show will simply be a televised version of his radio show and is part of a larger development deal Stern has with E! All five hours of his popular syndicated morning program will be videotaped each weekday by six robotic cameras, then a half-hour will be culled for showing on the cable network that night.

But after 45 minutes on the air with Stern--it seemed an eternity--there still remained some confusion.

The E! series might be called “The Howard Stern Show With Pictures” or “The Howard Stern Radio Show on Television” or even “Howard Stern on the Air.” There’s no telling. It might debut June 13. Then again, the launch date may be June 20. No one is quite sure.

Stern and sidekick Robin Quivers at least were honest about what the E! deal entailed: “We get to do television without any extra work,” Quivers said.

“And doing it on a major network is too easy,” Stern quipped. “I wanted the challenge of E!, where nobody can see us.”

He tried to make a serious case about being persecuted by the Federal Communications Commission. He tried to explain why he couldn’t come to terms with Fox for a late-night talk show. He tried to describe how the film version of his best-seller “Private Parts” would make him a movie star. He tried to find out my bra size.

After it was over, with nothing terribly personal revealed and Stern respectfully admitting that I had always been fair to him, I breathed a sigh of relief. I even began to think I might have managed to emerge from the experience with some dignity intact.

My peace of mind was shattered when I got to the office and heard the first message on my voice mail: A representative of the 509th squadron of the Air Force, stationed in Lakeland, Fla., said he and some 50 other guys had heard me on the show and wanted to know if I could send them an 8x10 glossy.

Rush Limbaugh would never have put me through this.