San Diego Magazine / July 1997 / Could He Shtick in San Diego?

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Could He Shtick in San Diego?

Jerry Springer encourages families, former friends and freaks of nature to take their domestic disputes public. On The Jerry Springer Show, strippers, adulterers and obscenities abound. So when May "sweeps week" invaded our airwaves, we started to wonder if Springer could ever get hired as a commentator on a San Diego newscast.

This is no random contemplation. Earlier this year, Springer was hired to do news commentary for WMAQ-TV, the NBC affiliate in Chicago. After management offered Springer the job, 19-year veteran anchor Carol Marin complained, then resigned from the station. Springer lasted two days.

Tom Mitchell, veteran news director at independently owned KUSI-TV (Channels 9/51), would hire Springer. "If he had expertise in this market, I wouldn’t say no," says Mitchell. "Of course, his commentary would have to be different than his show." (The Jerry Springer Show airs locally on KUSI.)

Hal Clement, news anchor at KFMB-TV (Channel 8), wants nothing to do with Springer. "I admire the courage of Carol Marin to quit the station," says Clement. "Jerry Springer has the right to say what he wants and to be on television. But I hate to think of him on a newscast. I think that kind of tabloid sleaziness is losing its appeal."

So would Clement have followed Marin’s lead? "I can’t quit my job—I’ve got a mortgage and a child in college," he says. "But I’d definitely tell management I was upset about it."

Kimberly Hunt, too, would complain but wouldn’t walk. "I don’t like the content he tries to foist on the public," says Hunt, coanchor of local ABC affiliate KGTV (Channel 10).

Adds Susan Taylor, coanchor of the evening news for San Diego’s KNSD-TV (Channels 7/39), "I don’t think Jerry Springer has the type of personality that fits in with San Diego."

Springer does represent an extreme within an expanding "infotainment" trend. And there’s another troubling tendency: the "networkization" of news—a definite factor on San Diego newscasts.

Item: The night of the controversial Ellen episode—in which star Ellen DeGeneres came out as a lesbian—KGTV made it the lead news story and did a viewer poll (Ellen runs on KGTV). The other stations mentioned the story briefly or not at all.

Item: Wheel of Fortune, which airs locally on 7/39, taped 10 episodes at the San Diego Convention Center. KNSD did live cutaways to cover the tapings. On other stations, it was as if Pat Sajak and Vanna White had never come to town.

"These network tie-ins are nothing new," says Irv Kass, news director at KNSD. "We thought Wheel was newsworthy. And to some extent we covered Ellen. But not like ABC did, obviously."

San Diego is far less entertainment-driven than Los Angeles, says Taylor, who has worked in both markets. Adds Kass, "Our audience is a smart audience, and we do a good job. But we’re not The McNeil/Lehrer Report. People who want to watch The McNeil/Lehrer Report can watch The McNeil/Lehrer Report."

The highly respected Report is actually now called The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer. We can only hope Mr. Lehrer isn’t looking over Jerry Springer’s résumé