<i> All Headlines, No News; So This Is Progress?

“World News Tonight” is pretty much globe-less, TV’s Action Newses lumbering, its Eyewitness Newses myopic.

In other words, newscasting is not noted for truth in advertising, and even your basic newspaper has less news than ads.

So credit CNN’s Headline News with being exactly what it has promised since starting in 1982. All tip, no iceberg. Expect in-depth reporting, the problem is you, not them. You might as well read the Globe for literary criticism and economic analysis.

We’ve got another millennium going here, though, and the week-old new Headline News is for speed-burning caffeine heads too revved up even for headlines. Take more than 10 words on “War and Peace,” and they’re squirming and drumming their fingers nervously. They want digests of Cliffs Notes. They haven’t the patience or time. Headline News is betting they want their TV news fast and snappy without breaking stride, the way a marathoner gets a cup of water on the run.

I hate to be musty on this, wanting not to be left in the Mesozoic Era should this become America’s brave new world of news.

What I’m getting from it, though, is the homogeneous background hum of informational Muzak, what British critic Malcolm Muggeridge accurately titled Newsac. Lots of stuff, less and less of it sticking.

No longer the tip of the iceberg, this is the tip of the tip.

What to call this phenomenon? Headlines-lite? Headlinettes? Hiccuping news? Why do I want to offer Headline News a spoon of peanut butter?

Headline News is reinventing itself for the usual reasons: falling ratings, aging audience.

So time for action.

The new Headline News has more anchors--some talkier, some in pairs, all of them relegated mostly to an upper portion of the screen as small as a third, while competing for viewers’ eyes with layers of computer graphics. These include quickie printed headlines (more about these later), a running stock market watch and weather stats, all available at a single (heh heh) glance. It reminds me of zooming along in Italy and coming to a crossroads where there are six confusing signs pointing each direction, then having to make an immediate decision before the honking speedsters behind you run up your back.

Cosmetically, Headlines News is merely extending the graphics and other visual clutter ever seeping into newscasts, not just in logo-laden cable news channels but in local news as well.

As on Thursday night, when I.Q.-challenged KCBS here shamelessly ran an insert showing one of those motorist-cops freeway faceoffs that ate a quarter of the screen as President Bush was addressing the nation live on federal funding of limited embryonic stem cell research. Little did Bush know, while weighing in on this epic hot-button issue, that he was being undermined in Los Angeles by embryonic intellects at a major network-owned station.

The screen clutter of Headline News is Internet-driven, of course, its plan being to look beyond its traditional middle-aged-plus base to a younger generation of viewers at ease with reading data from computers. Whether this will turn them on (I rather doubt it) remains to be seen.

Meanwhile, the choreographed, youngish TelePrompTer readers of Headline News are pleasant enough, schmooze amiably and perform their mechanized anchor moves on cue, swiveling and facing youthful specialist reporters as if turning to hear lectures.

The anchor with big buzz is Andrea Thompson, the “NYPD Blue” actress-turned-newscaster, who prepped a year in Albuquerque before fast-tracking to Headline News and partnership with smooth veteran Miles O’Brien in a prime newscast.

She’s a lousy news reader at this point, flubbing a lot when I tune in. Could be nerves. In any case, she’s hardly the first person hired as a news anchor solely because of being famous and a looker in this field where good acting is often more essential for success than good journalism.

Take gushy entertainment/culture anchor Alisha Davis, for example, who despite her Harvard degree could step into “Clueless” from Headline News without missing a single “you guys .” Not that tender years necessarily disqualify her and other regular contributors from serious news reporting. Remember the admirable election coverage on MTV in past years?

Much dicier--even when you’re expecting the superficial--are those tabloid-y, factoid-y headlines that pop up every 15 seconds below anchors and reporters. That’s where my eyes immediately go.

These truncated stand-alone summaries speak a clipped idiom that often trivializes critical issues, as in framing deadly nuclear peril as a petulant spat: “Did! Did not! China flatly denies helping Pakistan get nuke missiles.”

Many more of these are incomplete to the point of being bewildering, with viewers not informed when or if the gaps will be filled in later. Read these, for example:

* “Genoa police chief now admits excessive force used at G-8.” How many Headline News scanners would know this referred to treatment of protesters at July’s Group of 8 summit in Italy?

* “Race not factor in Wen Ho Lee spy probe: Post.” Which one, the responsible Washington Post or trashy New York Post? The source was critical. Or maybe it was the Post Office.

* “How They Feel. Parents gripe that clothes for young teens too sexy.” Which parents? Where did they gripe? In their kids’ closets? On the street?

* “Wrong Bill. Medicaid paying 350M private insurers should pay.” Who says?

* “Friend’s Help. ‘People’: Charlie Sheen drove Ben Affleck to rehab.” Why is this even in a newscast?

* “Rising Waters. Mt. Pinatubo crater lake is feared as flood-to-be.” Would Headline News viewers know Mt. Pinatubo is in the Philippines, which I learned after going to my almanac?

* “Storms Today. Cold front brings storms. 10-degree temp drop.” Oh, great. Storms where? Cold front where? Drop where?

* “NYPD Blue: 17 cops punished after 1 was charged with killing 4 at bar.” Why were the other 16 punished?

* “Grounded. ‘Triana’ Al Gore’s pet project: Wanted pix of earth 24/7.” Would viewers know that Triana referred to a proposed new satellite, urged by the former vice president, to provide round-the-clock Internet images of the Earth? Even if they did, who grounded it, and why?

* “Jerry Falwell joins Greta on ‘The Point’ 8:30 p.m. ET.” That would be Greta Van Susteren, and oh, yes, promos for her show and others on CNN are run in with other headlines as if newsy. At least these can be understood clearly.

Proving that Headline News has its priorities straight.

Howard Rosenberg’s column appears Mondays and Fridays. He can be contacted via e-mail at howard.rosenberg@latimes.com.