
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: MONDAY, April 19, 1993                   TAG: 9304170238
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: 1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Ben Beagle
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

GRINNING CAN BE BAD NEWS FOR TV ANCHORS PEOPLE

Because I no longer have to think constantly of bringing the truth of the times in which we live to readers of this newspaper, I find myself thinking about some pretty dumb things.

I always thought of some dumb things when I was a dedicated reporter illuminating the days of our lives, but not like what we are talking about here.

That is, I was looking recently at Tom Brokaw at his anchor desk with that really great peacock painted on it - watching his reaction to some of the reports from the field.

If, for example, 490 people have been sucked down a huge hole in the Staked Plains, Brokaw looks grim and compassionate when the camera returns to him.

If the report has been on a perfectly hilarious Easter Egg hunt at the White House, during which the president hasn't proposed any new spending or taxes, Tom is animated and smiling when he returns.

I'm forced to think there's a television journalism course that trains anchor men and women on how they should act after each report.

It goes like this:

Allison, a communications senior from Tall Horse, Okla., is taking Reaction 404, a required course.

We join the class in progress as the professor jumps and down and says: "No! No.! No.! Ms. Homebody. Your man in the field has just reported that 390 people have been blown away in a typhoon. You do not on such occasions, Ms. Homebody, grin like you're on the way to the Senior Prom with the biggest hunk in school when the camera returns to you."

"I'm sorry professor," Ms. Homebody says. "I got the typhoon mixed up with the story on those absolutely charming kids who have opened their own lemonade franchise in Omaha."

"That's the problem, Ms. Homebody," the professor says. "We need to concentrate and keep things straight. You can do that, can't you, Ms. Homebody? I mean, you've got to look right every time or you'd better get in the newspaper business where nobody knows what you look like after a typhoon report."

They run the typhoon report again and when Ms. Homebody appears on camera afterward, her mascara is running and her eyes are sad and downcast.

"Fine. Excellent, Ms. Homebody," the professor says. "You'll be another Connie Chung one of these days."

This goes on for a long time, with Ms. Homebody getting better and better.

The professor lets her go to dinner after she gets the hiccups from laughing at this really funny piece about a man who chained himself to the door of the IRS office in Ashtabula.

by CNB