Dial File: Should news be meant to amuse?

Thursday, Sept. 3, 1998 | 10:09 a.m.

PENCILS UP, class:

Which one of these summer series burned up the water-cooler circuit?:

A) "Stressed Eric" B) "Whose Line Is It Anyway?" C) "Maximum Bob" D) "Peccadillo Bill Sings the Bimbo Blues."

If you answered A, B or C, you're either a Democratic spinmeister or a Republican without cable.

Taking summer stock as Labor Day nears, it's clear that TV news out-rated TV entertainment on the National Amusement Meter.

I'll call it "A-news-ment." No, it's not in the dictionary, but neither is "infotainment" -- an information/entertainment hybrid -- another moniker born of TV trends. "A-news-ment" is a step up from "infotainment": watching so-called news specifically for its amusement value.

True, it's summer -- Newt Gingrich lancing a boil could probably snare a 10 share in the Nielsen book. But depending on developments (Ken Starr's report to Congress comes later this month), the presidential predicament could outperform the upcoming new fall TV season -- widely predicted to be breathtakingly boring -- among viewers.

Channel surfing along the foaming waves of punditry on cable and the networks was a ride to this realization: Headliner/President Bill Clinton, backed by a stellar supporting cast including Monica Lewinsky, Starr and a battalion of babbling commentators, has provided the best bang for the entertainment buck on the tube.

Actual news? Don't be silly. A few minutes with a newspaper and Headline News takes care of that. We're talking about news as personalities: those braying, bantering, bickering talk-show hosts and their combative panel of instant sages -- lawyers, professors, consultants, anybody with a credential and an opinion -- who often stop my remote cold, providing more entertaining foolishness than the aging adulterers on "Melrose Place."

As this information-age trend and a coming new century appear to be dovetailing, it begs a few questions:

Is "a-news-ment" an inevitable progression from the "reality programming" of "Cops," "Unsolved Mysteries" and "World's Zaniest Bloodbaths"? Will fictional TV touchstones such as "The X-Files," "Seinfeld" and "Touched By an Angel" become out of touch? With yammering, stammering "experts" as our modern Greek chorus and our newsmakers elevated to star status, will the American agenda become the new national burlesque? Not to overgeneralize the issue, but ...

ABC, NBC, CBS and Fox? Duds, flops, bombs and stinkers! CNN, CNBC, MSNBC and Fox News Channel? Drama, comedy, tragedy and confrontation! Will America be riveted to the Final Episode of "Clinton"? (Not that there's anything wrong with that.)

That may be taking TV prognostication to extremes -- sort of like "Network" in 1976 (although that prescient movie has edged eerily closer to reality in the past 22 years) and this year's "The Truman Show" (one unwitting man's life as a 24-hour-a-day TV soap opera).

But widespread "a-news-ment" seems closer to reality the more that network entertainment nosedives and my clicker plays Follow the Bouncing Pundits: from "Hardball with Chris Matthews" to "The Capital Gang" to "Reliable Sources" to "Crossfire" to "The Big Show with Keith Obermann" to "The McLaughlin Group" to "The News with Brian Williams" to "Time and Again with Jane Pauley" to Larry King to Geraldo to Charles Grodin to the Sunday morning yakmeisters and beyond.

So many unctuous, opinionated, arrogant, annoying, self-important, overbearing, stubborn, unreasonable, pontificating, pompous, witless, humorless, vengeful windbag/gasbag talking heads. Plus a few reasonable, intelligent, articulate ones tossed in to stir the pot and the passions.

It's grand entertainment -- with a cast of at least hundreds -- shining a spotlight of Shakespearean proportions on both the darkest and daffiest sides of human behavior.

Certainly, news -- even the presidency -- has made for crackerjack television for years. What were presidential news conferences if not long-running TV shows? They were outlets for entertainment staples such as pithy one-liners (the quick-witted John Kennedy), high drama (the defensive Richard Nixon vs. the confrontational Dan Rather) and moralistic optimism (the made-for-TV chief, Ronald Reagan).

Strip away those bothersome little details -- say, foreign- and domestic-policy blather -- and you're left with a dandy little game show in which we wait for those sinister reporter/contestants to trip up the Leader of the Free World for fun (bragging rights) and prizes (leapfrogging ahead in the media pecking order).

"Prez of Fortune." "The Prez is Right." "Prezword."

And it's been endlessly noted that such made-for-TV stories as the Gulf War, O.J., the Rodney King beating/Los Angeles riots, Clarence Thomas/Anita Hill and the Marv Albert saga have further melo-dramatized the news, turning stories into Emmy-worthy miniseries.

That lands us in an -- dare I say it -- "amusing" era of news-as-noisy-navel-gazing. And that's highly "a-news-ing."

CROON A TUNE: Takes a sly guy -- no lie -- to know "I Spy." And that sly "Spy" guy was ANDREW HATCHER, a back-to-back Croon-a-Tune winner for being quick on the telephone trigger.

But my oh my, a few other readers also ride high when they vie for "I Spy": Joe Lacy, John Paine and Susan Stone. The guesses of other Croon-a-Tuners ranged from "The Avengers" to "Burke's Law" to "Mannix," but it was this quartet who knew the theme -- with four gunshots spelling out "I Spy" in the opening credits -- that signaled the highly entertaining run-'n'-gun secret-agent series with Bill Cosby and Robert Culp.

This week's theme is waiting at a phone near you by calling 259-4012. You may answer anytime between noon today and noon Wednesday. Feel free to call as often as you like to hear the theme before answering. When you do venture a guess, don't forget to include the spelling of your name and a daytime phone number.

So call up soon, all you Croon-a-Tune loons.

MOUTH IN DRIVE, BRAIN IN REVERSE: Geraldo Rivera, who remains the most persuasive argument for banning television in America, is once again passing toxic fumes through that cavity between his nose and his chin.

The Sultan of Self-Worship, inexplicably restored to network news status at NBC, is already mud wrestling with Tom Brokaw, who rightly declared that he didn't want Geraldo's tabloid tendencies tainting his nightly newscast. Next? The Nabob of Narcissism natters on in Playboy's October issue, as excerpted by trade magazine Electronic Media.

Geraldo on TV news: "The network news business is more hypocritical today than it has ever been. It's absolute bull----." Geraldo on Dan Rather, whom he professes to like: He's "kinky" and "weird." Geraldo on Diane Sawyer: She started as a "socialite," but, as EM puts it, "has earned his respect." Geraldo on Barbara Walters: "Brilliant" and "a very sexy babe" with "great (a slang expression for breasts)." Geraldo on respected CNN/"60 Minutes" newswoman Christine Amanpour: a "sexy woman." Geraldo on Peter Jennings: His "archenemy ... I think of him as little Petey, whose father put him on the air."

Geraldo on ex-employer ABC News: It's "poorer for my not being there."

Rarely has poverty seemed so noble.

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