Off-Kilter : Newscast Pursues the Unadorned but Not Completely Naked Truth

Our Top Story: We’d rather not think about Dan Rather delivering the news in a Speedo swimsuit, but it could come to pass in the next millennium. That’s because he and his pasty-fleshed brethren at ABC, CNN and NBC might have to compete for ratings with a new syndicated newscast featuring bikini-clad anchors.

Set to debut in January, the nightly half-hour program will be called “Bare Essential News.” The concept might sound sleazy, but executive producer Tom Pennington insists it’s perfectly in line with standard TV journalism practices. All newscasts pander for ratings, he explained: This is just the first one to publicly admit it.

Pennington’s team is now “scouring the top journalism schools for talented young journalists who have good grades and great bodies.”

However, we think this strategy will fail. If TV news shows want higher ratings, they should take a cue from newspapers, which recently devised a foolproof formula to boost circulation: more front-page stories about East Timor.

Loser of the Week: Who says American colleges are dumbing down? Just look at some of the rigorous courses found by U.S. News & World Report:

* “The Physics, History and Technique of Juggling” (Duke University). We applaud the interdisciplinary approach, but why leave out juggling as literature?

* “Star Trek” (Cal State Chico). Sample multiple-choice exam question: “Complete this sentence: “Set phasers to ---” (a) party, (b) (stun, (c) mambo, (d) puree.”

* “The Biology of ‘ER’ ” (Purdue).

* “Vampires: The Undead” (University of Pennsylvania). Not to be confused with “The Slavic Vampire” at the University of Chicago.

Going Postal: We knew Off-Kilter’s readership was eclectic--everyone from prison inmates and chemists to Catholic priests and a guy who claims to have a doctorate in taxidermy from George Wallace Technical Institute--but we had no idea so many witches read the column.

Since our story on Hollywood’s bias against warlocks, we’ve heard from a bevy of broom pilots. Unfortunately, many of them were borderline illiterate (the only spell check they know covers magic, not grammar), so we’re not sure we understood every point. But the gist seemed to be that they were very upset--and that they might turn us into Newt Gingrich.

“Don’t write any articles that you haven’t did research on,” cackled an e-mail from Snowraven. “You should be fired or at least yelled at for what you have written. Many witches are mad at you.”

No doubt a platoon of flying monkeys is now circling above the Los Angeles Times, waiting for clearance from air traffic controllers to land and take us away.

Our apparent offense was using the word “warlock” to denote male witch. Never mind that the dictionary defines warlock as “a male witch” and defines “witch” as “a woman supposedly having supernatural power by a compact with the devil or evil spirits.”

Said one reader: “Don’t believe everything the dictionary says. Most of it is not right.”

Hmmm. We know there should be a clever retort here, but apparently someone just put us under a writer’s block spell.

Best Supermarket Tabloid Headline: “Space Alien Raped My Weed Eater, Reveals Mexican Farmer!” (Weekly World News)

Unpaid Informants: Wireless Flash News. E-mail Off-Kilter at roy.rivenburg@latimes.com. Off-Kilter runs Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, we turn into a newt.