Newswatch

By STANLEY W. CLOUD

FORGET ABOUT WHETHER RUTH BADER GINSBURG WILL MAKE IT TO THE Supreme Court. What Washington journalists really want to know is which of them will get Paul Duke's job as moderator of PBS's venerable news-analysis show, Washington Week in Review. Since June, when Duke, 66, announced his decision to retire, much of the national press corps has been gaga over the prospect of succeeding him. At last count more than 50 applications had been submitted, including many from print journalists who, in other circumstances, enjoy belittling TV. But never mind consistency -- the Washington Week job is an opportunity not to be missed: the pay is good (low six figures); the lifting isn't heavy (one 30- minute broadcast a week, with four guests to help out); and the lucky winner will soon assume the status of full-fledged celebrity.

Breathes there a journalist with soul so pure that he or she would turn down all that? Doubtful. Those of us who scribble for a living have demonstrated that if you scratch us, you'll find a TV personality waiting, with batting eyelashes, to be discovered. For all of print's tut-tutting about TV, the most upright of us, like David Broder of the Washington Post, do it. . I do it, and most of my colleagues do it. Even lefties like the Nation's Alexander Cockburn do it. Most of us love doing it. We'll do it for nothing on C-SPAN and ^ MacNeil/Lehrer, or for the TV equivalent of the minimum wage on Meet the Press and Face the Nation. In fact, with due allowance for the rare principled exception, anyone in print who doesn't do it probably hasn't been asked.

Why do we do it? To promote ourselves and our employers, to gratify our egos, and to make people want to hear more from us. (The lecture circuit, although sometimes ethically dubious, can generate fees ranging from $2,000 to $20,000 for a 45-minute speech.) Moreover, as R.W. Apple Jr., Washington bureau chief of the New York Times, rather delicately puts it, "doing television can improve your access" to official sources. The economics are sweet for TV producers as well. They know that print journalists work cheap, are well informed and are readily available to leap into the electronic maw. Adds John McLaughlin, who in the early 1980s pioneered the food-fight format, in which print journalists engage in opinionated shouting matches: "They're also better performers."

Performers? There's the problem. The issue isn't just being on TV; it's the kind of TV. Panelists on the more flamboyant journalistic talk shows have allowed themselves, for entertainment's sake, to be typecast. Here's the liberal, over there the conservative; here's the wimpy moderate, there the curmudgeonly old vet. They are not asked to analyze the news (as journalists on Washington Week are). In the quest for good ratings, they are required to have and express opinions -- baked, half-baked, and some not even close to the oven -- according to the roles they've been assigned. For many serious journalists, the broad effect has been pernicious. Says veteran network news executive Ed Fouhy: "One reason why the public hates the press so much, particularly the Washington press corps, is that they see these screaming head shows as part of the problem, not part of the solution."

Maybe that's why Washington Week's skilled, far-sighted and very brilliant producers say opinion-laden journalists need not apply for Paul Duke's job. Me? I haven't had an opinion in years . . .