3 Days of the Newscasts, or Can Emmys Be Revoked? : Many awards have just been bestowed on the town’s news organizations, but how worthy are they?

L.A.’s finest.

That’s what the Emmy Award judges ruled Saturday, naming KTTV-TV Channel 11’s “Fox News at Ten” the area’s best daily 60-minute newscast and KNBC-TV’s “Channel 4 News at 11” tops in the daily 30-minute format.

Although they represented all of 1993, the newscast awards actually were based on only one night of programming--last Nov. 16--with stations not being told in advance precisely when they would be under scrutiny by the out-of-town judges.

Just how award-worthy are these Emmy-winning newscasts? Here’s how they performed three nights this week.

Monday . . .

Minus commercials, anchor chitchat, weather and sports, about half of Channel 11’s hourlong “Fox News at 10” was devoted to actual news. To its credit, the newscast did not boast about its Emmy.

Its 31 stories--a dozen of which featured people in peril--averaged nearly a minute in length, the longest being a five-minute D-day package that led the newscast. That was followed by a useful story reviewing the latest Los Angeles Police Department contract proposal.

Then “Fox News” rolled in the violent crime-and-misery stories, including the Oceanside fire that took the lives of an adult and four small children. Trampling on his right to grieve privately, “Fox News” lengthily showed the anguished father of the children coming apart and pleading: “Please, God, don’t . . . no . . . God . . . no. . . .”

“Fox News” capped this section of the program with its nightly running total of gun deaths in Southern California. Next came a spate of quickie headlines, the longest of which lasted 30 seconds. Meanwhile, nearly four minutes were devoted to the horse-race aspects of the coming Tuesday primary election, two minutes to a story about downtown buildings failing earthquake stress tests and 90 seconds each to a follow-up on the Azusa bear shooting and a story reporting possible biological causes for women crying more than men. As if Hollywood were reality, the latter story was supported by clips of actresses bawling in movies.

“Fox News” also gave just under two minutes to a feature on roller-coaster riders at Magic Mountain. “You guys have to have tough stomachs?” one was asked.

*

Tough stomachs are mandatory for viewers at 11 p.m., where the notion of Channel 4, KCBS-TV Channel 2 and KABC-TV Channel 7 vying for a best news award is like Dr. Mengele, Jack the Ripper and Hannibal Lecter competing for the title of best surgeon.

On Monday, “No. 1-rated, Emmy Award-winning Channel 4 News at 11”--as it called itself--opened with the Oceanside fire story, also showing the poor father’s terrible pain.

In all, the half-hour newscast delivered about 14 minutes of actual news, including just over two minutes on those shootings of teen-agers at a San Marino party. Then came the quickies, plus a minute on the elections, a D-day story and a nicely done tie-in with a local veteran. “We’re proud of you,” anchor Kelly Lange said.

And proud of “A Child Lost Forever,” that evening’s 1992 NBC docudrama whose “real story”--did that mean the movie was false?--the newscast self-servingly rehashed for 90 seconds. After more quickies (including Dian Parkinson’s sexual-harassment suit against Bob Barker and a blurb on Bob Woodward’s new book on the Clinton Administration), the “No. 1-rated newscast in all of Southern California” closed out in typical fashion by blowing kisses at the ensuing “The Tonight Show With Jay Leno” and “Late Night With Conan O’Brien.”

Paul Moyer: “Hey, tonight, Jay welcomes Little Richard.” Lange: “Whoooooo!” Moyer: “Conan welcomes Fran Drescher.” Lange: “Absolutely!”

*

T uesday . . .

Primary night found “Fox News” delivering a routine election newscast--the usual returns plus reporters checking in from various headquarters, including free-spirit Jane Wells sharing her inner child with Republican senatorial winner Michael Huffington: “Y’know, I gotta tell ya, you’re still sort of a mystery man to me. . . .”

Although the elections predominated, “Fox News” did report gunplay at a graduation celebration, kids playing with matches as the possible cause of the fatal Oceanside fire, a mountain lion being captured in Escondido, a paternity suit against Michael Jackson and a study showing college drinking on the rise.

In addition, the Emmy-winning “Fox News” did manage to cram in coverage of the Hollywood premiere of “Speed,” which--was it a coincidence?--just happened to be a movie from 20th Century Fox.

“It’s getting rave reviews,” said anchor John Beard. “Sounds exciting,” said substitute anchor Carol Lin.

As for excitement, Channel 4 expanded its late Tuesday newscast to an hour, with reporter Laurel Erickson providing the highlight with a perceptive look at the coming “street fight” between Gov. Pete Wilson and his Democratic challenger, Kathleen Brown.

Yet technically, the newscast sank faster than a liberal in Orange County, opening with split-screen live pictures of Republican and Democratic headquarters, then cutting to Moyer: “You were looking at two live pictures. Let’s put em’ up again, on the left the Republican headquarters, on the right--c’mon, let’s see the picture--the Democratic headquarters.”

But no pictures. “Well,” Moyer said, “you saw them (earlier) anyway.”

It got worse when Jess Marlow confidently began what was scheduled to be a tape-supported election analysis, then was victimized by a 13-second snafu that seemed like 13 minutes. He looked at the camera, waiting for the tape to come up. Seemingly frozen, he kept looking. Kept looking. Kept looking. Then he slowly lowered his eyes so that he was looking at his lap. He kept looking down. Then he slowly raised his eyes, again looking at the camera. Kept looking. Finally, tape came up. The wrong tape.

Moyer jumped in: “Y’know, Jess, what strikes me about all this. . . .”

After some ad-libbing, Marlow finally got his tape. But there were more mess-ups, such as Lange reporting that Huffington’s GOP opponent, Rep. William E. Dannemeyer, was “very annoyed tonight--he was quite angry,” without saying why.

Channel 4’s non-election news included a classic example of the gratuitous live stand-up, with reporter Beverly White, somewhere in Laguna Beach, reporting that four people from “the Laguna Beach area” may have died in a small plane crash in Florida.

Wednesday . . .

“Fox News” led with that day’s widely felt earthquake in an isolated area of Bolivia, from which there were no early reports of damage or casualties.

Seven of the next eight stories were about crime, six involving violence. Post-election coverage was devoid of thoughtful analysis. There were a strew of quickies. Buried near the end of the hour was a substantive story detailing criticism of President Clinton’s plan to upgrade school lunch menus.

The Bolivia quake led that evening’s “Channel 4 News at 11,” too, preceded by a trademark tease from Moyer: “8.0 quake felt in Los Angeles, but centered somewhere else!” Making viewers wonder during the ensuing commercial break whether “somewhere else” meant San Francisco or San Diego was typical of KNBC--using fright to lure viewers to the newscast.

The half-hour also included an update on a Channel 4 investigation and the usual rat-a-tat-tat of headlines. But missing from this mix--as if erased from memory--was the one story that had preoccupied everyone on Tuesday. What? Nothing about the primary elections? Well, as this week proves, even L.A.’s finest aren’t perfect.