KCBS Gets Its Due: Surprise!

A little positivism goes a long way.

In the case of KCBS-TV Channel 2, a very long way, as Monday night it aired its first “What’s Right in Southern California” public service awards, an inspired, pomp-pumped companion to the station’s new policy of curtailing the long-pervasive negativity in its “Action News.”

What’s definitely right in Southern California is a program like this, one brought forward under KCBS vice president and general manager John Culliton, and one that celebrates the positive instead of stressing only what’s bad and projecting metropolitan Los Angeles as little more than a bloody, swampy killing field.

Making this screeching U-turn is a swell idea, a spectacular idea.

In other days, the “strength and beauty of the human spirit” attributed to the night’s honorees were pearls that Channel 2 applied only to itself. So if this signals a new era of born-again goodness and benevolence for the station, if the Holy Grail is finally in sight, let the church bells ring and the standing ovation begin.

Of course, Channel 2 was also doing a good deed for itself Monday night. There was a certain self-promotional component here, with Channel 2 anchors JeanneCooper, a star of the CBS daytime soap “The Young and the Restless,” and Jonelle Allen of the network’s “Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman” gussied up in formal wear to join the Rev. Robert H. Schuller and comic Paul Rodriguez as featured hosts and presenters (even First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton addressed the gathering via videotape) during this prime-time hour of power that followed the NCAA basketball final on CBS.

Moreover, awards and newscasts featuring more good works and happy endings don’t address some of the fundamental deficiencies in TV news here. For example, a survey of local stations by media watchdog FAIR (Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting) found Channel 2 and KNBC-TV Channel 4 giving no coverage--zilch--to the coming Los Angeles elections during their 11 p.m. newscasts from March 24 through last Saturday, and KABC-TV Channel 7 and Spanish-language KMEX slipping in only 33 seconds and 56 seconds, respectively.

Ironically, Channels 2 and 7 each totaled more than five minutes of election-oriented political advertising in the monitored 11 p.m. newscasts, FAIR said, meaning that virtually the only election messages viewers of the studied programs received were paid ones from the candidates themselves. Not a healthy situation.

Independent stations did somewhat better in their 10 p.m. newscasts, according to FAIR, with KTTV-TV Channel 11 devoting just under three minutes to next Tuesday’s elections across the six-day survey period, KTLA-TV Channel 5 a bit more than five minutes, KCAL-TV Channel 9 just over six minutes and KCOP-TV Channel 13 nearly eight.

It should be noted that the “Heaven’s Gate” mass suicides occurred during the survey period, making it an especially frantic time for news organizations here, potentially squeezing out other news. However, the city’s 11 p.m. newscasts for years have sought to prosper by shoveling violence and titillation at viewers and avoiding not only election coverage but any TV moment that strays perilously close to substance.

But enough of this negativity, and back to the good news.

Two of 13 awards handed out Monday night were predictable as well as deserved, one going to the “brave men and women” of the Los Angeles Police Department for coming through so admirably during the big shootout in North Hollywood, another to William Jensen, the courageous Glendale firefighter who was so severely burned during the most recent wildfires. He accepted his award with an arm still in a sling, his badge of courage.

Other winners were Juvenile Judge Roosevelt F. Dorn; Rabbi Marvin Hier, dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center; and Gary Stewart, president of Rhino Records; as well as lesser known Andy Vargas, Laura Angelica Simon, Debbe Magnusen,Miki Jackson, Samuel Genensky, Lorna Hawkins, Mary Ann Lam Bui and GenaroCortez, the latter being one of the people who Rodriguez said “live quiet lives and have an effect on their neighbors.” Well, not quiet to the kids for whom he organizes soccer leagues.

What a group, what a concept, what a show, one so unique for TV in Los Angeles that it can generate not only adulation for a few of the area’s genuine heroes but also a positive column about Channel 2. Hey, this is getting contagious.