Morning Report - News from June 8, 2001

The best thing about writing a column only twice a week is writing a column only twice a week. The worst thing is sometimes getting to things a little late or early.

Such as:

When James Hahn dodged Antonio Villaraigosa in Tuesday’s Los Angeles mayoral election, maybe so did the media.

A seat-of-the-pants hypothesis? Yes. A political outsider, I base this entirely on separate 15-minute live interviews the candidates had Monday afternoon with KNBC reporters Laurel Erickson and Conan Nolan during the station’s mostly admirable special hour of election coverage. KNBC gave the mayoral and other races quality time recently in contrast with its past dismal record, along with the rest of commercial TV here, in covering local elections.

Veterans Erickson and Nolan did rather well with Hahn after pretty much bombing with Villaraigosa.

This relatively fleeting moment may have had no bearing on how Hahn will be or Villaraigosa would have been as mayor. Yet their differences on the air that day were striking, giving perhaps some indication how they would publicly interact with reporters as the city’s chief executive.

Although clunky and stumbling a lot (if you closed your eyes you heard Tommy Smothers), Hahn at least made an effort to respond directly to questions. All right, he was no booming geyser of openness, again stonily defending, for example, his nasty TV campaign ad that all but equated his opponent with the drug lords of “Traffik.” But at least when Erickson and Nolan asked, Hahn answered.

Speaking from a campaign stop in Venice, on the other hand, Villaraigosa was stunningly evasive behind a foot-thick wall of slickness that Erickson mislabeled “charm.” Instead, a used-car salesman came to mind when the candidate called Nolan and Erickson “the dynamic duo” and later told them, “It’s so great talking to you two, you’re just the best.” If the anti-smarmy police had been there, he would have been off to the cooler.

Knowing he was behind in the polls, Villaraigosa kept going and going like the Energizer bunny, and being rude to him would have been bad form. But it didn’t help that his questioners were usually too slow to break in when he got rolling downhill, as in Nolan asking him why he hadn’t sought a City Council seat before running for mayor, and instead of an answer, getting a two-minute monologue on his attributes.

Nor did the reporters nail him by re-asking questions he finessed. So no wonder he found it great talking to them.

Meanwhile, Villaraigosa may have been lucky in losing. That’s the impression you got from KABC sportscaster Bill Weir on Wednesday night after the Lakers were upset by the 76ers in Game 1 of the NBA Finals.

“We have a new mayor one day, and he has to deal with a citywide depression,” Weir began. Actually, Hahn is just the mayor-elect. And besides, this concept of a Laker loss rendering all of Los Angeles gloomy is a function of local sportscasters’ own postgame mopiness. To say nothing of myopia.

It was disproved, in fact, as soon as KABC went from Weir to a live shot of a sports bar where young people in Lakers jerseys, instead of being downcast, cheered wildly at the camera as if celebrating a win.

Nothing shakes the blues, apparently, like 30 seconds of fame.

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What do you fear most? More derivative TV like this, perhaps?

Coming Monday is NBC’s new “alternative” series, “Fear Factor.” Why “alternative”? Alternative to what? Go figure.

Up for grabs each week here is $50,000, with three men and three women, obviously chosen for their youth and good looks, competing in a series of challenges that are supposed to represent their greatest fears.

In the premiere, they’re dragged by a galloping horse, required to perform a feat of agility on a car suspended high above the ground and made to lie quietly as scores of small rats crawl over them.

What a crock. Take the horse bit. There are frontal tight close-ups of the contestants being dragged, but no camera visible during wider shots of them and the horse. Unless the camera is mounted somewhere on the horse where the sun doesn’t shine, you have to wonder if this stunt is entirely on the level.

And what’s so scary about rats? Worried about being nibbled to death? Get outta here. We’ve had them as pets. They’re smart, affectionate, clean and extremely lovable. In this case, more so than NBC’s “Fear Factor” competitors.

My secret fear is something much more insidious: being locked in a room with Martha Stewart.

Ooooooh! Eeeeeek!

This force of entrepreneurialism is everywhere, trailing wisteria, Irish moss and lavender while making kadzillions as America’s lifestyle doyenne in print and on TV, appearing regularly on “CBS This Morning” and also starring in her daytime series, “Martha Stewart Living.”

Oprah Winfrey got her Wednesday.

“Marthahhhhhh!” called Oprah, and out she came, dispensing tips like dried flowers, bearing a jar of jam made from her “very own home-grown rhubarb.” Think fingernails scraping a blackboard.

If you’re interested in lampshades made from potato skins, bronzing your bread crusts and teaching underdeveloped nations how to organize their linen closets, this woman is for you.

Better yet, she could teach “Fear Factor” contestants how to fashion a charming centerpiece from rat droppings.

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And another thing, formerly dominant CNN is surely in transition. Once first with the news, it now is sometimes the caboose.

An embarrassing example came Wednesday morning when it learned last--after ABC, CBS, NBC, MSNBC and the Fox News Channel were already airing bulletins--that Timothy McVeigh’s request for a stay of execution had been denied. Even as its competitors were reporting that McVeigh would die Monday (the outcome of new legal appeals notwithstanding), CNN and its experts were still schmoozing about the likelihood of the execution being postponed again.

Nonetheless, CNN has been making some good moves of late.

One was hiring veteran Aaron Brown from ABC News as an evening anchor. Brown is one of the most thoughtful journalists in TV.

Another was erasing the cockamamie “The Spin Room” to make room for the ambitious new “Greenfield at Large.”

The item CNN needs least, you’d think, is more gabbing, even if witty, self-effacing, widely informed, insightful host Jeff Greenfield is near the top of TV journalism’s food chain.

What’s more, this half-hour is wobbling on baby legs, still somehow lacking an edge and vitality while each night having Greenfield and his guests discuss a single topic from their different perspectives.

And that set: Arrrrrrgh!

Nonetheless, “Greenfield at Large” is already the smartest, most literate discussion series on TV this side of “Charlie Rose.” Like Rose, Greenfield doesn’t flip through a Rolodex of usual suspects. But unlike Rose, he is a generous listener who is no smarty-pants driven to compete with his guests by showing off his own erudition.

Greenfield’s first two shows were surely watchable, yet listless. Especially worthy, though, was Wednesday night’s unconventional chat about capital punishment--merging passion and detachment--with journalist-producer Linda Ellerbee, “How We Die” author Sherwin Nuland and New York University professor Tricia Rose.

This is highly promising stuff. Best of all, it’s a week old, and still no sign of Alan Dershowitz or Gerry Spence.

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