You’ll Probably Never See This ‘Breaking News’

Here’s the latest on 24-hour news channels, from real ones to the fictional I-24 on “Breaking News,” a stunningly good series topping nearly everything else in prime time today. But don’t bank on ever seeing it.

First, the familiar.

The watchdog group FAIR affirms in a new study what we who regularly view the 24-hour Fox News Channel already know: That it leans as far right as FAIR (which stands for Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting) does left.

The difference is that New York-based FAIR does not deny its “progressive” (read liberal) outlook, whereas the fast-rising Rupert Murdoch-owned Fox News Channel boasts ad nauseam of being “fair and balanced,” promising viewers repeatedly, “We report, you decide.” Buy that, and your ticket awaits for cruising Death Valley on the Queen Mary.

Fox News Channel CEO Roger Ailes cites its combative “Hannity & Colmes” program as representing political balance. That’s a joke, for pugnacious righty Sean Hannity nightly does to his patsy left-of-center partner, Alan Colmes, what those slicing, dicing Benihana chefs do to beef, chicken and shrimp.

Among the few formidable aliens crossing Fox’s radar, in fact, is none other than FAIR founder Jeff Cohen, a regular panelist on the channel’s own weekly half-hour chatting about media. FAIR says Cohen is no longer directly associated with the group.

In its study, FAIR homed in especially on Fox’s signature evening newscast, “Special Report With Brit Hume,” saying that its guests across a five-month period skewed nearly 9 to 1 Republican and that 71% of its guests were “avowed conservatives.”

Talk about stale mantra, meanwhile. Again getting in touch with his inner infant, Ailes told the New York Times recently that if his cable channel appears conservative, it’s “only because the other guys are so far to the left.” One of those guys, he maintains, is CNN, the once-dominant 24-hour news pioneer now hemorrhaging audience almost as fast as ratings for Fox, and to a lesser extent MSNBC, have been rising.

FAIR found in a comparative study of CNN’s evening newscast, “Wolf Blitzer Reports,” that only 57% of that half-hour’s guests were Republican for the same period, and just 32% “avowed conservatives.” Left unsaid was how many of the remaining 68% were avowed liberals.

In any case, witnessing CNN try to beat back Fox with new tactics, including splashier graphics and choreography, is like watching Whistler’s Mother trying to become Jackson Pollock.

Which is the best of these round-the-clock news channels that, along with talk radio, speed the flow of information across a 24-hour fast track, often sending it careening wildly out of control? Still to be determined.

Television’s best series on the news business? Best ever? No contest, “Breaking News.”

It has vision. It has relevance. It has high drama. It has humor. It has action. It has realism. It has texture. It has intelligence. It has credibility. It has impeccable production values. It has arresting, believable characters. It has superior actors. It has the finest pilot I’ve seen in years. It has 13 episodes in the can, six of which I’ve watched, popping in one after the other, loving them all and never getting enough. It has everything you’d want from a series about a 24-hour news network mirroring many of the strengths and foibles of its real-life counterparts. It has the juice to be a hit. More critical than that, however, it has . . .

Nowhere to air.

“We were screwed,” said Gardner Stern, still bitter about TNT inexplicably bailing from his series after those 13 hours of “Breaking News” had been shot at a cost of about $20 million, and after the cable network had repeatedly set, then postponed the new show’s airdate.

TNT withdrew from “Breaking News” after concluding “it would not be a breakout hit,” The Times was told recently by Robert DeBitetto, the network’s president of original programming, and prospects are not strong for selling it elsewhere.

It’s boggling that a series this fine likely will not find a home and be judged by viewers instead of just by suits in executive suites.

Corporate synergy embraces “Breaking News” at this point. Although Gardner did much of his research for the series at MSNBC, he says TNT had it “vetted” by CNN. Both TNT and CNN are subsidiaries of AOL Time Warner.

Gardner said he heeded few suggestions contained in “the pages of notes I was sent from a guy at CNN.” So . . . I’m just speculating, but is it possible that “Breaking News” was scratched by TNT because some of it either is unflattering to 24-hour news operations or raises ethical issues that could make TV journalists squirm uncomfortably?

Just a taste:

* I-24 lucks into a blockbuster exclusive regarding the nation’s vice president being a possible fatality in a Colorado avalanche. “It’s our Gulf War,” says veteran lead anchor Bill Dunne (Tim Matheson), thinking of the prominence that conflict gave CNN.

Then a different dilemma intervenes when a woman brings in a videotape of the vice president, a married proponent of “family values,” having sex with an actress. “If we don’t go with it, she’ll be at NBC in 20 minutes,” says hyper senior producer Rachel Glass (Lisa Ann Walter).

Although executive news director Peter Kozyck (Clancy Brown) wants to hold back for the moment, Dunne snaps: “This is a newsroom. There is no place for sentimentality here.”

* I-24 apologizes to viewers after televising a close-up of someone fatally shot in the head during a hostage crisis, the Russian roulette of live TV striking again.

* After getting orders from I-24 CEO Jack Barnes (James Handy), Kozyck reluctantly assigns a story on a steamy new entertainment show that is running on the parent company’s station group.

* Recalling an actual tragedy some years ago in Miami, reporter Janet LeClaire (Myndy Crist) inadvertently causes someone to be gunned down when thoughtlessly manipulating a story.

* Although Dunne is highly accomplished, his ratings have slid, earning him a co-anchor in LeClaire, whom focus groups consequently deem unworthy of parity with him. What to do?

“Have her walk around the newsroom like they do at MSNBC,” says the news consultant advising I-24. Glass asks what happens should the “wandering minstrel” routine fail. “Dump her,” the consultant replies.

Significantly, Glass doesn’t grimace or pout, for the characters of “Breaking News” are neither sugar-coated nor condemned. They act responsibly most of the time, but when they don’t, it’s not from evil intent, but because their jobs subject them to intense pressures.

You sense it in frame after frame. Glass, peeking her head into Kozyck’s office after the avalanche story: “We beat CNN by 11 minutes, and they cited our report.”

None of this is anything like the shrill fantasy of “The Beast,” a booming new series about a 24-hour news network that has found a home, on ABC. In contrast, several “Breaking News” episodes rank with the best TV I’ve seen through the years, including one that has Dunne trying to interview a Middle Eastern terrorist in Paris as his wife, Allison (Patricia Wettig), a prominent TV journalist beset by bipolar mood swings, keeps self-destructing back home. It was directed by Wettig’s husband and former “thirtysomething” co-star, Ken Olin, as was that terrific pilot that also introduces interesting characters played by Jeffrey Sams, Rowena King and Paul Adelstein.

Performances here are first-rate. That minimalist Matheson strikes the perfect tone; Wettig knocks your socks off; and so persuasive is Walter as the hot-wired Glass that you have no sense at all of her acting. Stern plucked her from a newsroom, right?

A problem: A few cast members have moved on to other series. And if I-24 were really a round-the-clocker, its coverage of the vice president’s plight, the hostage crisis and the plane crash would feature its own avalanche of melodramatic headlines, overwrought promos and space-filling hour after hour of rumor and wild speculation trumpeted as news.

“Breaking News” is plenty good without it. Am I overselling? Too bad you won’t find out.

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