The News Schmooze: Show-Biz Reporting

Television news, especially in Los Angeles, has settled over time on a collection of stock characters.

Almost without exception there is the stern, occasionally jocular anchorman (think Ted Baxter); the pretty (and usually much younger) female co-anchor; the bombastic but wisecracking sports guy, who shows lots of funny mascots and fights, squeezing in an actual game highlight from time to time; and a preternaturally tan weather guy, who manages to be wildly enthusiastic about the same forecast as the day before.

This formula has remained unchanged since the Nixon administration. In the last few years, however, there has been an insidious addition to this cast--something that can only be called “the entertainment clown.”

Love or hate them, local TV personalities like Rona Barrett, Gary Franklin and David Sheehan did function as reporters and critics. Franklin’s pet peeves were never well-hidden--he trashed “Raiders of the Lost Ark” for depicting “funny Nazis”--but he treated the job as serious business.

Today, a new breed has descended on the field of entertainment reporting, one that places so much emphasis on entertaining, the reporting has become a bit of a joke.

Entertainment clowns will be front and center over the next few weeks in the buildup to the Oscars and the innumerable awards shows preceding them, putting a spotlight on the Barnum & Bailey of this circus act, KTLA’s Sam Rubin and KABC-TV’s George Pennacchio.

KABC at least tacitly recognizes that Pennacchio does more gushing than reporting by labeling him its “entertainment guru,” apparently there to help lead us in our worship of all things Hollywood.

Pennacchio has toned down his act a bit since the days when he regularly injected himself into stories, from having George Clooney pose for a picture with the guru’s sister (she happened to be in town visiting) to cheerily asking venerable actresses if he could “steal” a kiss, then carrying on about the coup with the station’s anchors.

That said, Pennacchio still projects utter adoration for those he interviews. Scarcely able to contain his excitement, you half expect all the good will to explode through the top of his head.

“He’s asking celebrities the things that fans would if they could,” said KABC news director Cheryl Fair in explaining Pennacchio’s approach.

“Sometimes, he is a fan. I don’t necessarily think that’s a bad thing. When you’re at the Oscars on the red carpet, that’s a night for the fans.”

Rubin, by contrast, fancies himself to be an entertainment reporter, though in truth his reporting is usually limited to reading stories out of the Hollywood trade papers in an overheated manner that frequently causes his voice to crack.

Although he hosted a short-lived series entitled “Scoop,” to the best of anyone’s knowledge the only story Rubin ever broke himself--his breathless 1997 announcement that Oprah Winfrey would give up her hugely popular talk show--turned out to be wrong.

The one innovation Rubin (and indeed, the entire KTLA morning news team) has brought to television news is a remarkable flair for self-promotion--turning even the most disconnected story into an excuse to talk about their own exploits. Reading an item about Jay Leno or Rosie O’Donnell, Rubin would throw in a plug for one of his now-defunct talk shows or his guest-hosting stint on a radio station. The underlying theme--loosely translated as “My career is as interesting to folks at home as anything some actress from ‘Dawson’s Creek’ could possibly say”--remains constant.

Even KTLA executives have grown weary at times of Rubin’s antics, suspending him in November for joking on the air about station management.

KTLA news director Jeff Wald, who rejoined the station in that capacity a little over a year ago, said Rubin has a unique on-air personality, which is one of the ways news programs define themselves.

“Everyone who’s on television has a style,” he said. “Otherwise, we’d all be doing ‘Meet the Press.’ ”

Indeed, when it comes to style, Rubin and Pennacchio are hardly alone. KTTV’s competing morning show labors not to be outdone in terms of sheer giddiness. The prevailing wisdom seems to be viewers require zany banter in the morning to jog them out of bed--the equivalent of setting one’s alarm at air-raid decibel levels.

Such practices have become status quo not only throughout the day but across the dial. The sheer volume of entertainment news has proliferated thanks to an explosion of outlets screaming for attention, as “Access Hollywood,” “Showbiz Today” and E! Entertainment Television crowd in on “Entertainment Tonight’s” turf.

Competition for access to stars has led to jockeying to see who can be the coziest with their subjects. “ET” has become increasingly obnoxious in this regard, last week featuring hosts Mary Hart and Bob Goen mugging for pictures with Golden Globe recipients--seemingly having a much better time than viewers--in the show’s backstage “photo booth.”

“I do have a problem with the shows that pander to celebrities,” Wald said, maintaining Rubin’s coverage often provides a harder edge. “Sometimes I think they’re in the pandering business rather than the entertainment news business.”

Yet even the major networks impose different standards when delving into entertainment. Remember how Barbara Walters boogied with Demi Moore on one of her ABC specials, or Ed Bradley held hands with Lena Horne during a “60 Minutes” profile? You don’t see them doing that with Secretary of State Madeleine Albright or Atty. Gen. Janet Reno.

Admittedly, entertainment isn’t foreign affairs, which one can argue gives purveyors of such news license to be fun and frothy. Yet rest assured, these reports are taken seriously by the publicity machines who view them as free advertising for their movies and TV shows.

Moreover, stars and studios behave just as badly as everyone else, and sometimes worse. Those covering entertainment thus require some level of detachment or credibility on those days when an actor attacks a photographer with a tire iron or Disney sues another day-care center for putting Goofy on the walls.

Solid entertainment reporting does slip through, but puffery prevails most of the time, particularly on the local level. At least truth-in-labeling would appear in order, having anchors like Harold Greene or Hal Fishman turn to the station’s “news jester” or, borrowing from self-help vernacular, “show-biz information enabler” for the latest buzz from Tinseltown.

Oh, and don’t forget a little intro music. Something appropriate, like “Send in the Clowns.”