HOWARD ROSENBERG : When a Little Skepticism Is in Order

TV interviewer: “How do you regard your opponent?”

Candidate: “With contempt. My opponent is a lying, philandering, law-breaking, child-molesting, spouse-beating, puppy-kicking, tax-embezzling, racist, sexist, ageist, godless, Communist, fascist, anarchist Army deserter, armed robber, serial murderer, mobster and necrophiliac who is spying on the U.S. for a foreign government.”

TV interviewer: “Thank you very much. Now the weather. . . .”

No, the above is not an excerpt from a TV interview with Republican Mike Huffington, in an antagonistic race with Democratic incumbent Diane Feinstein for the U.S. Senate. It’s a gross exaggeration. Well, perhaps not all that gross.

In some respects, California candidate Huffington’s nannygate--the jolting disclosure that he and his wife, Arianna, had employed an illegal immigrant to tend their young children for nearly five years--has been TV’s ninnygate.

Huffington gets away with a lot. In part it’s the way he speaks, slinging verbiage with such scattershot rapidity that his words bounce like raindrops without immediately penetrating. For whatever reason, TV interviewers too rarely hold him accountable.

In fact, their experience with Huffington is a strong argument against the very concept of live interviews when the material is complex and the time allotted is woefully inadequate.

During their tightly formatted 4 p.m. Friday newscast on KABC-TV Channel 7, for example, anchors Christine Lund and Steve Wolford tried gamely, in the scant minutes given them to quiz Huffington, to dissect his countercharges against Feinstein concerning her own alleged employment of an illegal immigrant in the early 1980s. But Huffington steamrollered them with new alleged data with which they appeared unfamiliar, intensifying his crusade to hang a “hypocrite” label on Feinstein.

With Huffington making the TV rounds with his new anti-Feinstein story early Friday night, KCBS-TV Channel 2 reporter Linda Breakstone got a crack at him via satellite while covering a Los Angeles rally for President Clinton. Breakstone did aggressively ask Huffington to account for the Associated Press refuting a portion of his current TV ad quoting the AP as saying Feinstein had lied concerning her own immigrant controversy. Huffington: The AP “just came out with another announcement. . . .” Its substance? He didn’t say, and he wasn’t asked, as the fleeting interview ended and Breakstone went back to covering Clinton.

Meanwhile, there was Huffington earlier Friday with anchors Susan Lichtman and Tony McEwing on the KTTV-TV Channel 11 morning show, “Good Day L.A.,” taking questions from citizens at various Los Angeles sites while being allowed to deftly spin away from his own nannygate crisis and excoriate Feinstein for hers.

At one point, Huffington was asked by an Angeleno how he envisioned enforcement of Proposition 187, the hotly debated California initiative that would end nearly all social services for illegal immigrants.

“That will be up to Gov. Wilson,” Huffington replied, “and I’m sure they’ll work on it after it passes.” Next question.

But wait a minute. Rewind the tape. Hadn’t Huffington just admitted that he hadn’t a clue about enforcement of this initiative that he so vociferously backs? And the Channel 11 anchors hadn’t called him on it? Yikes!

The tradition of reverence in TV news interviews--an attitude akin to “the customer’s always right” in retailing--extends back to the medium’s inception. Yet more than four decades later, why are so many newscasters still such utterly inept wimps when it comes to live interviews of political candidates and their surrogates, not bothering even to challenge them when they tell obvious tall stories or make charges that can’t be substantiated?

Not that TV’s grand inquisitors should imitate CNN’s “Crossfire,” where interviews resemble muggings. Nor should they be as worshipful as the host of CNN’s “Larry King Live.” Somewhere in between would do.

These newscasters--most often they’re anchors--usually rebut their detractors by noting that live TV interviewing is horrendously difficult and something their critics could never do. Point well taken.

Yet their critics aren’t the ones being paid to do it, and they are. So . . . shouldn’t these professionals be expected to do it competently, just as we demand competency from a plumber or concert pianist, whose tough jobs are also beyond the skills of most of us?

Why aren’t more newscasters like ABC’s Ted Koppel, the “Nightline” host who processes information during live interviews faster than anyone else on television? All right, for years Koppel has occupied his own stratosphere as an interviewer, exhibiting an acute ear and awareness, almost as if observing his own interview from out of body.

Back on earth, though, why aren’t more TV interviewers even like Mary Tillotson, the incisive host of “CNN & Company,” a weekday half- hour program that hashes over topical events?

One of Tillotson’s guests last week was Arianna Huffington. Naturally, illegal immigration came up, specifically the Huffingtons’ admission that they had apparently broken federal law by employing an illegal immigrant as a nanny and not paid all the required taxes.

When Arianna Huffington repeated her claim that she didn’t learn that the nanny was in the United States illegally until nearly a year later, Tillotson logically wanted to know if she asked the woman about her citizen status when she hired her.

“I didn’t ask,” the candidate’s wife replied. “I had just had a baby. . . .” Tillotson paused a bit, then asked Huffington about the nanny: “She had a Latin American accent, didn’t she?”

Huffington: “Yes.” Tillotson: “And no one in your household thought to inquire if she were an illegal immigrant.”

Tillotson’s summation carried a glint of sarcasm that reflected a reasonable skepticism. She should give lessons to her colleagues.

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