One big vapid family

In the new movie “Anchorman,” Will Ferrell plays Ron Burgundy, a San Diego newscaster in the early 1970s. He’s a vain nincompoop, but he has a good heart, impressive hair, a resonant voice and (when we meet him) two important relationships -- one with his dog and the other with the city of San Diego, which he believes may be the greatest city in the history of mankind. “You stay classy, San Diego” is his sign-off; he loves the city and it loves him back. The fact that he has nothing important to tell it is beside the point.

“Anchorman” is a film only lightly tethered to reality, but it is based on the solid understanding that TV news has less to do with information than with appearance: It’s not because Burgundy and his colleagues are superior reporters that their Channel 4 News Team is No. 1 in town -- they are, in fact, idiots. Rather, they most possess the particular qualities that hypnotize viewers into a state of “trust.” Just so, we the people of the real world select our newscasts and newscasters not according to substance -- everyone reports on the same stories -- but style, the variations in presentation and personal appearance that stir our own particular juices: the cock of a head, the twinkle in an eye, the curl of a lip, the shine of the hair. The same sort of things we choose, or that choose us, when we fall in love. This is how we elect our presidents too.

Like the rest of television, whose job it is to distract your attention from the actual life around you (so that you’ll watch the commercials), local news functions as a substitute for life, or a simulacrum of it. And what it offers you is not news -- no news in that -- so much as community.

Set in the great days of women’s liberation, “Anchorman” -- though only after making some rude jokes -- marks the arrival of women in the newsroom and the changes in attitude it forced. Before the addition of Veronica Corningstone (Christina Applegate as Kelly Lange, more or less), Ron Burgundy’s Channel 4 News Team is a self-styled, self-deluded combination of Rat Pack and “Mission: Impossible” force -- swinging agents of information, each with his operational specialty (the sportscaster, the weatherman, the investigative reporter, the leader). In one scene, they rumble with rival news teams in a close parody of “Gangs of New York.”

But in movie and life alike, the arrival of the female co-anchor established a new, softer paradigm, and a national standard. Despite the persistence of tags like “Action News Team,” the current model is that of a family. The hard stares and set jaws of the crusading, death-defying journalist were exchanged for the happy smiles of a chatty clan -- Mom and Dad delivering the main bulletins, with eccentric uncles and sexy aunts reporting on sports and the weather, and sundry cousins calling in from around town. All speaking directly to you, the viewer, the child, on the other side of the screen.

That local newscasts tend to air at breakfast, lunch, supper and just before bed -- hours of family gathering -- is both significant and fitting. Because what they offer ultimately is table talk, mealtime gossip: murder, traffic accidents, missing children, but also bake sales, diets, contest winners, health fads, rainstorms, heat waves, celebrity marriage and divorce. That they devote comparatively little time to subjects of actual weight or political import -- the ongoing business of the city government, the machinations of local industry and other boring bits of information required to build an informed and responsible electorate -- is perfectly appropriate. It is not what they’re designed to do -- which is to suggest community.

As vapid as the modern local newscast can be -- and even network news bows down to sound bite and spin, while 24-hour cable news demeans reality with competitive chatter and jumped-to conclusions -- it doesn’t really matter. Like most TV, it’s something to watch without seeing, thoughtless entertainment. And yet simply by watching, one participates, joins the virtual news family and the suggested community beyond it.

This is all illusion, of course, but it’s an illusion not without value, especially in a city like L.A., where civic sense is as thin as carpaccio, as ephemeral as stardom.

Local news helps us to remember, or believe, or at least accept the illusion, that we are all in something together, as much as we like to go on our way in actual daily life. It brings us up, even as it brings us down.

You stay classy, Los Angeles.

*

Bringing it home

As with the fictional San Diego of “Anchorman,” Los Angeles has seen an evolution of its TV news anchors and reporters, from the grand-old-man model to the current mix of sex and snark.

The anchor evolution

Jerry Dunphy: His stentorian “From the desert to the sea to all of Southern California” catchphrase at KNXT (now KCBS), KABC and KCAL embodied the image of a serious newsman for decades ... until he became an object of parody.

Tom Snyder: He was the mildly hipper, slightly theatrical variation at KNBC before heading to New York and late-night duty on NBC.

Paul Moyer: Goodbye, Ed Murrow-style anchorman. Whether reporting on brush fires or Lakers championships, the model for 30 years on KNBC and KABC has been that of an easygoing older brother.

Kelly Lange: Frequently paired with Moyer, this weather-and-traffic reporter turned news anchor gave a motherly touch to the news at KNBC.

Lauren Sanchez: The image here is “sexy cousin,” with tight, skimpy clothes and a breezy, chatty delivery on the decidedly unconventional 11 p.m. news on KCOP.

And beyond the anchor desk

George Fischbeck: The weatherman at KABC was the picture of a brilliant, unhinged uncle. You listened but didn’t want to get too close.

Sam Rubin: As entertainment reporter on the KTLA “Morning News,” he’s by turns a smart aleck and eager beaver. Sort of the cousin you avoid at get-togethers.

-- Jonathan Taylor