‘PERSON OF WEEK’ IS A WEAK LINK

Catch your breath. It’s that thrilling day again, another fabulous Friday in the life of ABC’s “World News Tonight.”

Are you shivering? Are you quivering? Is your skin all prickly? Is your head throbbing? Are you numbing over? Are you in a daze? Are you having trouble pulling yourself together? Are you biting your nails? Can you withstand the almost unbearable suspense, the tingling excitement, the wild anticipation as the hour nears when, once again, ABC News announces its “Person of the Week”?

What a brick.

“World News Tonight” unveiled this nincompoopy weekly sideshow way back on March 21, 1986 as a gimmick to attract more youthful viewers to its Friday newscast. Naming a “Person of the Week” was supposed to make the news more appealing and presumably hipper.

Tip O’Neill was the first of the honorees, and they just got hipper and hipper every week.

ABC’s weekly “persons” have ranged from Jerry Lewis to James Madison.

What glory. What esteem. What a heady experience. Yes, you can imagine the euphoria of British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher the day she learned that ABC News had named her the week’s top person. She’d hoped. She’d dreamed. But to actually achieve such recognition? It’s what she’d lived for. These kind of honors don’t grow on trees.

Under rocks, maybe.

It’s not as if news executives at ABC put a lot of effort into this by doing extensive research, drawing up a list of candidates and submitting them to ABC News President Roone Arledge for final selection.

The seat-of-the-pants method is closer to the mark. Sometimes you have the feeling that ABC’s “Person of the Week” is chosen along the lines of pinning the tail on the donkey. Vincent van Gogh? Fight trainer Angelo Dundee? Well, those were slow weeks.

Can you imagine families across America sitting on the edges of their seats awaiting the big moment:

“Dinner’s ready, George.”

“Not now, Myrtle, ABC’s about to name the ‘Person of the Week.’ ”

Actually, there’s about as much suspense attached to ABC’s “Person of the Week” as to Chevrolet’s “Player of the Week” on major-league baseball telecasts. Does anybody care? How could anybody care?

As a concept, “Person of the Week” is a real stroke of dumb, an idea whose time shouldn’t have come.

It’s nothing more than a promotable package, a profile or biography, one whose relevance to a legitimate newscast is usually obscure at best. Even worse, its a four-minute-plus chunk out of a newscast that at 22 minutes (minus commercials) is already little more than a hiccup and far too brief to inform viewers about news of the world. How many valid stories get bumped from the Friday newscast because one-fifth of the news hole is allotted to “Person of the Week”?

Who will be this week’s No. 1 person? Santa Claus? Too early.

What about Dr. Ruth? Her mouthwash commercials can’t be underestimated. Tom Brokaw? Give him credit for leading “NBC Nightly News” to the top of the Nielsen ratings, past Dan Rather and “The CBS Evening News.” Rather? Give him credit for helping NBC and ABC by fading.

Johnny Carson deserves support for still being married. Better yet, Calvin Coolidge.

Oliver Twist or Sheree North could work. Lt. Col. Oliver L. North? Too obvious. But don’t discount the invaluable head custodian who supervises cleaning the Senate Caucus Room after each day’s Iran- contra hearings.

There are other possibilities:

--President Ronald Reagan (a previous “Person of the Week”), for setting a good example for the rest of America by being a discriminating TV viewer in not initially watching Ollie North testify, despite having an avowed thirst for knowledge about the Iran- contra affair.

--John Wayne, for setting an example for North.

--House chief counsel John Nields for looking like “an old balding hippy,” as CBS correspondent Phil Jones noted Thursday, in contrast to the patriotic North. Jones reported that members of the select Senate and House committees investigating the Iran- contra affair were getting angry calls from constituents saying: “Tell that attorney to cut his hair.”

--House minority counsel George Van Cleve for allowing North time Thursday to explain why everyone disagreeing with him was un-American.

--The owner of the Park Lane Hosiery Shop in Washington for stocking the leotards that North said he bought for his daughters.

--North’s loyal wife, Betsy, for chiding her “old buffoon” for forgetting that he bought the leotards.

--”The Good Lord” (“Deity of the Week,” perhaps), whom North credited with providing Fawn Hall with her good looks.

--Fred D. Thompson, former Watergate minority counsel, for putting down some TV coverage of the Iran- contra affair for characterizing the hearings as a horse race in keeping a running score on North’s progress.

“When a man has been branded a traitor and a liar, he does not have a lot to live up to,” Thompson noted on CBS Thursday concerning glowing media assessments of North’s performance as a witness. “A lot of this is a media creation: Col. North has been discredited, and now the news is that he’s doing pretty well.” As some others have done, Thompson advised the media to hold off their Is-Ollie-winning or-losing? tally until completion of his testimony.

--ABC News chief Arledge, who could make himself a real top person by shredding “Person of the Week.”