Mills Fights Back After Contrived KGTV Story

Visibly shaking, his face growing red, an almost apoplectic Jim Mills lashed out at KGTV (Channel 10) during a live interview last week, accusing the station’s news department of “McCarthyism” and creating a “filthy smear.”

Although overstated, the former state senator had good cause to be irate.

The source of Mills’ outrage was a three-part series entitled the “Lords of Transit,” which set out to discover if transit officials “practice what they preach,” according to Channel 10’s typically tabloid-style advertisement.

In the name of investigative journalism, Channel 10 cameramen followed three transit officials from their homes to work on at least two mornings, ostensibly to determine if they actually use public transportation. Mills, who is chairman of the Metropolitan Transit District Board, was one of the targets. “What they say. What they do,” the ads for the series read.

In one case, a Channel 10 cameraman followed Manuel Demetre, director of Commuter Computer, as he drove to work at 4 a.m. Instead of being impressed that this poor Joe was driving to work at such a ridiculously early hour, Channel 10 offered it as evidence that he wasn’t following the transit department’s own pleas for commuters to use mass transit.

A similar technique was used to tar two other transit officials--Ann Dash, the head of North County Van Pool, and Mills. In each case, a skulking Channel 10 camera team taped the officials--gasp!--driving their cars to work.

In many ways, it was the worst kind of sensationalistic reporting.

The reports didn’t prove anything. The officials said they used mass transit on other days, which Channel 10 couldn’t dispute.

Mills, who lives in Del Mar, said he takes the train to work about 20% of the time, and waved his calendar at the camera to prove it. He says he drove his 1981 Chevy Citation to work only twice last week--both times because he had appointments with Channel 10, once for Thursday’s interview and the other to make a 7:30 a.m. editorial board discussion about an unrelated topic.

Instead of doing a piece on the deficiencies of the lame local transportation system, Channel 10 took a titillating approach that backfired.

Even if these transit officials are hypocrites--which was far from proven--they are not the likes of famous athletes who preach against drugs and then get caught with cocaine. They are not evangelists found with prostitutes. They are simply mid-level bureaucrats who picked the wrong days to drive their cars to work.

“I’m not saying (the series) proves anything, I’m saying it does raise the focus of the issues,” said Channel 10 News Director Paul Sands.

Hidden-camera technique can reap great visual rewards. ABC’s “Prime Time Live” has developed the technique to a science, recently using it to uncover repair fraud and to illustrate how blacks are treated differently in some areas (a segment Channel 10 attempted to re-create locally).

“Prime Time” succeeds by covering all the bases, catching and proving that people are doing something wrong; Channel 10 failed because it did a quickie hatchet job.

Most disturbing was Channel 10’s willingness to promote and air the story, even though it clearly didn’t illustrate the stated topic. They took the thin, balding Mills and his Chevy, and other transit officials, and tried to insert them into the scenario depicted in ads for the series, which showed a fat cat driving a Mercedes.

From a finite perspective, the series was accurate. Channel 10 didn’t say anything that wasn’t true. In introducing one segment, anchorman Stephen Clark was careful to point out that it only suggested that transit officials “don’t always practice what they preach.”

But the glaring, unproven implication that the transit officials are hypocrites was grossly unfair.

“All they produced was half-truths and innuendo,” a still-angry Mills said Friday.

To Channel 10’s credit, each official was given plenty of air time to respond to the charges. Also, during Thursday’s 11 p.m. newscast, Herb Cawthorne did a commentary agreeing with Mills, although he made sure to add that reporter Kent Ninomiya is a “good reporter who takes his job seriously.”

Sand said that following the officials illustrated the stories and raised the issue more forcefully than simple interviews.

“The fact is that a lot more people on April 24 were talking about mass transit than there were on April 21,” Sands said.

That may be true. But a lot of people were also talking about how low a television news operation can sink to contrive a story.

The decision last Thursday by XTRA-FM (91X) management to suspend the “Berger and Prescott” show for airing a bawdy and typically unfunny Andrew Dice Clay routine reeks of management bowing to pressure from advertisers. Management appears to be protesting too much, with gratuitous public chest-pounding, including on-air apologies and announcements that further explanations would come on the air today.

Although management denies it, the station appears to be making a preemptive strike to prove to advertisers that it is truly a bastion of morals and ethics, no matter what local Bible thumpers may say.

Station manager Mike Glickenhaus said he had to react because the show had violated accepted broadcasting guidelines for obscenity. He expects to meet with Mike Berger, Jeff Prescott and Russ T. Nailz later this week to attempt to come to “an agreement.” He said it has not been determined if the suspension is with or without pay.

The team will probably be back on the air within a few days. All involved appear to agree that the Clay routine should not have aired.

Even ardent Michael Tuck bashers are praising his performance before, during and after the Robert Alton Harris execution. In unsensational terms, he expressed his “dread” of witnessing the event, and then reported on it without the self-important personal revelations offered by many of the other witnesses. . . .

The San Diego Business Journal no longer prints a list of the top advertising agencies in town because so many agencies were lying about their numbers. . . .

There were no great surprises in the Winter Arbitron radio ratings report. Country station KSON again dominated most categories. It was also a good book for KFMB-FM (B100) and KGB-FM (101.5). . . .

CRITIC’S CHOICE

NICHOLSON IN BORDER FILM SERIES

The Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego, nee La Jolla, has found an interesting choice to lead off a film series entitled “The U.S.-Mexican Border in Contemporary Cinema.” Tony Richardson’s “The Border” (1981) is a gritty, violent look at the gradual corruption of a Border Patrol officer, played to vaguely sleazy perfection by Jack Nicholson. Performances by Harvey Keitel and Warren Oates help make it more than a simple action-adventure film. “The Border” screens at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday.