This Just In: A Show About TV News Gets It Right

In Montana, a federal courthouse is bombed by domestic terrorists, and an undercover producer for round-the-clock news network I-24 tapes the epic blast. When his Chicago bosses receive the dramatic footage, they air it 11 times in 96 minutes. Eleven times!

“Breaking News”--a smart and entertaining new weekly drama on cable’s Bravo--is that acute in capturing the rhythms of journalism practiced by TV these days.

Days when news channels, along with talk radio, speed the flow of information across a 24-hour fast track, often sending it and themselves careening wildly out of control. Days when pouring it on again and again is industry mantra.

Think Incident in Inglewood.

Think handcuffed Donovan Jackson getting roughed up by Officer Jeremy Morse. Think footage of that on networks and local stations, aired impulsively every time this story is mentioned. Which is plenty, with much more coming now that demagogues, in and out of media, have the story in their teeth.

Think glut, pictures shown so often that rather than inflame the public--a likely initial impact--desensitization and apathy may eventually set in.

Seeing it 11 times a day should about do it. Oh, Inglewood again.

This coverage does not surface in a vacuum. TV blasted America repeatedly with pictures of LAPD officers savagely beating Rodney King. Oh, him again. And pelted America ad nauseam with home movies of rouged-up cowgirl JonBenet Ramsey. Oh, her again. On and on it has gone.

So you’re thinking: Oh, a series about TV news again. What’s the point? They never come close to getting it right.

This one does, while offering, as a stunning bonus, high drama, adventure, humor and quality acting in stories about a fictional 24-hour news network that apes many of the strengths and foibles of its real-life counterparts as it faces one ethical crossroads after another.

Executive producers Gardner Stern and Ken Olin (now also a co-executive producer of ABC’s “Alias”) are keen observers. Take Wednesday’s outstanding premiere (directed by Olin), when I-24 lucks into blockbuster exclusive coverage of the nation’s vice president getting trapped in a Colorado avalanche.

I-24 staffers converge on the story. From an airport, where he and his family are about to depart for a Hawaii vacation, rushes executive news director Richard Sloan (Olin). From a bed, where they are having hot sex, speed reporter Jamie Templeton (Rowena King) and field producer Julian Kerbis (Paul Adelstein). From his kitchen, after feeding his son breakfast, comes reporter Mel Thomas (Jeffrey D. Sams).

Inside the studio, I-24’s human pistons are pumping adrenaline. “It’s our Gulf War,” says seasoned, sober lead anchor Bill Dunne (Tim Matheson, seen as the vice president on “The West Wing”). Dunne is so old-school that he quotes Edward R. Murrow and wears three-pointed white handkerchiefs with his dark suits. But he’s a pro who understands ratings and remembers CNN’s prominence during the Gulf War.

When the avalanche story turns carnal and tawdry, and a woman offers I-24 a steamy video, thoughtful news president Peter Kozyck (Clancy Brown) wants to hold back for the moment. “If we don’t go with it,” argues hyper senior executive producer Rachel Glass (Lisa Ann Walter), “she’ll be at NBC in 20 minutes.”

Or 10. “Breaking News” can’t be faulted for being a millimeter off here and there. It was filmed a couple of years ago for TNT, which curiously turned thumbs down without airing any of these 13 episodes. Talk about a weird programming decision. I watched them all in two days, and still couldn’t get enough.

It helps to suspend a bit of disbelief. Although I-24 competes with the biggies, its corporate shape is unclear and staff small enough (although somehow always present when big stories break) to fit into a single news van. Just as NBC’s “Law & Order” makes its quartet of detectives and prosecutors a metaphor for a department, the I-24 journalists we meet are much less a CNN or Fox News Channel army than a platoon.

They also include reporter/co-anchor Janet LeClaire (Myndy Crist), producer Quentin Druzinski (Vincent Gale) and field producer Ethan Barnes (Scott Bairstow), son of I-24 CEO Jack Barnes (James Handy). The tornado that blows in midway through the series is Dunne’s bipolar wife, Alison (Patricia Wettig), a former ABC News hotshot hired to host an interview show.

From uplinks to downlinks, “Breaking News” talks the lingo glibly and seamlessly. If it gets a few details wrong, it frames the big picture just about perfectly, becoming TV’s first entertainment series to examine the process of news gathering and tiptoe with journalists through the perilous minefields of corporate synergy.

After getting orders from Barnes, for example, Kozyck reluctantly assigns a story on “Touch and Tell,” a sexy “reality” series aired by the parent company’s station group. At another point, Barnes tries to kill an expose of a sweatshop owned by the parent company.

Drama here evolves largely from news stories. They range from a submarine catastrophe to Dunne interviewing a Muslim terrorist in Paris. Some of them raise ethical questions that confront, and confound, journalists today.

There are also staff tensions: Templeton and LeClaire are bitter rivals. Glass guards her turf ferociously, bristling when Kozyck intrudes.

And even though his ratings as a solo “are in the toilet,” as Barnes puts it, Dunne resents sharing an anchor desk with the relatively green LeClaire. He reminds Kozyck that he was “No. 2 at CBS, heir apparent” before joining I-24.

This is no Camelot for LeClaire either. When focus groups fault her performance, a news consultant suggests having her “walk around the newsroom like they do at MSNBC.” Glass wonders what happens should the “wandering minstrel” routine fail. “Dump her,” the consultant replies.

Only one figure here approaches caricature. But if you think short-lived consumer reporter Lloyd Fuchs (played hilariously by John Ritter) really is too far over the top for credibility, you haven’t been watching all-news channels or some local stations lately.

Otherwise, these are measured characters who defy TV news stereotype. Dunne has a major ego but is a solid journalist with integrity. The driven Glass speeds down corridors as if on invisible roller blades, but pauses occasionally to explore her sensitive side. Except for Barnes, in fact, everyone here is likable on some level, and when shaving ethical corners, I-24’s actions are much less venal than rash.

How it would stack up in Inglewood, of course, we’ll never know.

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“Breaking News” premieres Wednesday night on Bravo with back-to-back episodes at 5 p.m., repeating at 8 and 11 p.m.

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