Newscasters

Michael Gartner vividly recalls when, in 1989, as president of NBC News, he sat down for a meeting with Alfred Geller, the agent renegotiating Connie Chung's contract. "Geller plopped down and put his feet on the table," Gartner says. "He had a few buttons of his shirt open with his rather large stomach sticking out. He proceeded to tell me he wanted $3 million a year for Connie, her own prime-time show, she got to pick the producer and . . . he wanted a quick answer.

From the vintage globe projected behind the anchor desk to the Cronkite-era producers mixing it up at story meetings to the no-frills reports that fill 21 minutes and 16 seconds each weeknight, the "CBS Evening News" has made a determined effort to bring newsy back. A shift that began in the latter months of Katie Couric's five-year run has accelerated and taken on a new fervor in the last nine months since the ascension of Scott Pelley to the anchor's chair. When Pelley took the seat once occupied by Walter Cronkite last June, it represented a return to form at CBS News -- giving perhaps the network's most visible platform not to a celebrity host but to a longtime reporter best known for his work on "60 Minutes" and for dozens of forays to Iraq, Afghanistan and other world hot spots.

This is the story of Dorothy and the Wizards of Ooze. Dorothy is KCBS Channel 2 reporter Dorothy Lucey, who drew the short straw in being assigned to last week's grimy ratings-sweeps series on sleaze. Yes, news series. The "wizards" are the Channel 2 executives who conceived or approved or condoned this incredibly cynical exercise in audience manipulation by a flagship station of CBS, the network with the most honored tradition in all of TV news.

Bassem Youssef is barefoot, pacing around the dining room of his apartment in the tony Maadi neighborhood where he has assembled a crack team of twentysomething bloggers and activists. They are hunched over their laptops in Conan O'Brien and "Family Guy" T-shirts, plotting Egypt's comedy revolution. To Youssef, 37, the actual revolution was hilarious. Much of the January uprising that unseated Egypt's longtime president was fueled by online media: social networking websites such as Facebook and Twitter , but also clips posted on YouTube — images of Tahrir Square, of protesters and security forces and former President Hosni Mubarak addressing the nation on state television.

Re "Nostalgia Is Big News at Channel 2" (Feb. 1): I hope I live long enough to see two seventysomething female newscasters on TV in Los Angeles--or anywhere else in this world! SANDY JACOBSON Marina del Rey

After nearly half a century in broadcasting, including 40 years in network television, newsman Douglas Edwards will bid adieu Friday. His final TV appearances will be on CBS' "Newsbreaks" at 10:56 a.m. and 2:40 p.m. on Channels 2 and 8. His last radio broadcast will air over KNX-AM (1070) at 6 p.m. In the summer of 1925, when I was 8 years old and living in Ada, Okla., I did the customary Saturday afternoon thing for someone my age: I attended the movies.

A veteran KNX-AM news reporter and anchorman was arrested in the middle of his nightly newscast on suspicion of molesting a 13-year-old girl, Simi Valley police said Thursday. Simi Valley police detectives arrived at the Hollywood radio station about 8 p.m. Wednesday to arrest reporter Bruce Bernhart, but at the request of station officials, waited until another KNX reporter was found to fill in for the remainder of the newscaster's on-air shift, said Simi Valley Police Lt. Bob Klamser.

ABC's "World News Tonight" saw a boost in its ratings in the days after anchor Bob Woodruff and cameraman Doug Vogt were seriously injured in a roadside bombing in Iraq. The newscast drew an average viewership of more than 9.3 million people between Jan. 30 and Feb. 3, just 300,000 fewer than top-ranked "NBC Nightly News" and a boost of 7% over its season average. Until last week, the gap between the shows this season was averaging more than 1 million. NBC drew more than 9.

"WIOU's" vision of local TV news is preposterous, a caricature, a distortion. At least, that's what many people who work in television news in Los Angeles are saying about CBS' new drama about the inner workings of a TV newsroom. "A lot of people were saying it would do for TV news what 'L.A. Law' and 'St. Elsewhere' did for the legal and medical professions," said Ernest Arboles, producer of KCBS Channel 2's 6 p.m. newscast. "But I think it fell far short of that.

Despite the loss of a prospective anchorman, Anaheim-based TV station KDOC (Channel 56) will proceed with plans to launch "Newswatch," its first locally produced, 30-minute nightly newscast, by the end of the month. Scheduled to air at 8:30 weeknights beginning Feb. 27, the broadcast will be co-anchored by the station's news director, Michelle Merker, and a male co-anchor yet to be hired.

An apt title for the typical TV newscast of the 1950s might have been: "Inaction News!" There simply wasn't much of it on the tube back in those pre-Lindsay Lohan days. In Southern California, for instance, the nightly fare on KNXT-TV (Channel 2) in 1959 consisted of a network newscast from 7:15 to 7:30, and two local newscasts from 7 to 7:15 and 11 to 11:15. Yup, 30 minutes of local news nightly, two-thirds of which was devoted to sports and weather. TV anchors would sometimes introduce stories by holding up the morning's newspaper headlines.

Katie Couric has poise, good looks, smarts and the kind of warmth on camera that a lot of other news people would love to duplicate. She also had the distinction of serving as anchor of the "CBS Evening News" as it became stubbornly locked into its position as least favored of the three nightly network newscasts. As Couric prepares to sign off Thursday night for the final time, one can't help but wonder what went wrong. Nothing more, it appears, than misplaced priorities, unrealistic expectations and an underestimation of how dangerous it can be to remake a venerable franchise.

After luring Katie Couric away from NBC's "Today" show in an attempt to revamp the evening news with star power and broad appeal, CBS News has made a more traditional choice in tapping "60 Minutes" correspondent Scott Pelley to succeed Couric. He will take up the anchor role on "CBS Evening News" starting June 6, the network announced on Tuesday. As an internal hire and a veteran newsmagazine reporter, Pelley is many things that Couric was not. Where Couric brought a conversational, accessible style from her morning show background, he represents the network's return to a more sober, direct approach.

Reporting from New York — Eliot Spitzer and Kathleen Parker want to clear up something from the outset: They have no intention of hosting a predictable political debate show. Their new, as-of-yet-untitled roundtable program, which premieres on CNN this fall in the key 8 p.m. ET slot, will tackle a broad range of topics in a forum more akin to a conversation than the now-defunct "Crossfire," Parker said Wednesday. "It's going to be what people talk about at their kitchen table every day," Spitzer added.

The state of Arizona has been at the top of the news since last week's approval of a law designed to crack down on illegal immigrants. Social and political developments seem to be breaking nearly on the hour, so there's plenty to report. So where did the crack news leaders at KNBC Channel 4 take us to capture the story one night this week? The Hollywood red carpet launch of a celebrity's new perfume. That's right. Because if the beautiful people don't care about immigration in Arizona, why would we?

The streets are dark, the sun has not yet risen and most residents are still sleeping. But the daily war on the local TV front is already blazing. It's a battle being waged from West Los Angeles to Burbank and fought with a steady stream of friendly bulletins about traffic, weather and a preview of the day's coming news. But don't mistake the pleasant tone of the pre-dawn newscasts at KCBS Channel 2, KNBC Channel 4, KTLA Channel 5, KABC Channel 7 and KTTV Fox 11, which belies what is fast becoming one of the most fiercely competitive time periods in regional news across the country.

All the news that's fit to air? Shame on KABC-TV Channel 7 and KNBC Channel 4--one for reporting non-news, the other for non-reporting. Through the years, Channel 7 has taken a back seat to no Los Angeles TV station when it comes to blatantly using its news programs to promote its entertainment programs, especially in such ratings sweeps months as May. Tradition was again served Sunday when Channel 7 carved out a chunk of its 6 p.m....

A former newscaster with KNX Radio in Los Angeles was sentenced Friday to 90 days in jail for molesting a 13-year-old baby-sitter. Bruce Bernhart, 39, of Simi Valley had pleaded no contest to one count of child molestation in August. Investigators said that on June 19, Bernhart blindfolded the girl on the pretext of playing a game, then put her hand on his penis. He was arrested that evening during his broadcast at the radio station. Bernhart's attorney, Jay L.

KCAL news anchor Pat Harvey can still recall her edgy excitement generated decades ago by not only the imminent launch of an ambitious and historic broadcast but also by widespread predictions of failure. It was March 5, 1990, as the now veteran broadcaster positioned herself behind the anchor desk, the focus of a sparkling new set on a Paramount Studios sound stage. After months of planning, a rash of hirings and upgrades that cost more than $30 million, she was on the front lines of an unprecedented experiment -- a nightly three-hour newscast.

Frank N. Magid, an audience researcher who became known as a "news doctor" for transforming local television news using an "Action News" format that featured chatting co-anchors, more lifestyle and crime stories and splashy graphics, has died. He was 78. Magid died Friday at Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital, said a spokesman for Frank N. Magid Associates, the company he founded in 1957. He had lymphoma. During his career, Magid worked with ABC on the launch of "Good Morning America," recommended that CBS use Walter Cronkite as its sole network news anchor and pushed stations to use the early morning hours for news.