Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, January 17, 1994 TAG: 9401220016
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: FRAZIER MOORE ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: NEW YORK LENGTH: Medium
As surely everyone must know by now, Sullivan, the former broadcast news ``It'' girl who lost her job and gained weight, has signed with Weight Watchers International to showcase a new diet plan called Superstart!
In what the weight-control firm calls ``living testimony,'' Sullivan appears in TV commercials proclaiming ``I don't want to do it alone'' (Who does?) and adding, ``We're all in this together'' (We who? In what?).
At a news conference last week, Sullivan, all 12 pounds less of her with another 12 to go, stood alongside life-size cutouts of a chunky Sullivan-before-Superstart! As she addressed several dozen reporters, she seemed someone other than the svelte, spicy Sullivan of old. She was perky and ingratiating. Also clearly uncomfortable.
And why not? Once she was a seven-figure siren of TV news. First, a breakout CNN anchor. Then, a dishy ABC sportscaster. Then, an eye-opening host of ``CBS This Morning.'' Then, four years ago, she was canned.
Now she's back, working for scales. And with her return to TV, she has raised anew an age-old question: Despite the protests of journalistic purists, are informing and selling finally the same thing?
They seem to be for Sullivan, who described her Weight Watchers gig as ``a natural extension of why I got into journalism.''
And why did she get into journalism? ``Because I wanted to help people.''
Her humanitarian urges duly established, she conceded the embarrassment factor in weight-loss exhibitionism. ``But I knew if I could help, I'd put my foot into the puddle.''
Of course, Sullivan isn't the only broadcast journalist putting a foot into this bogus realm of advocacy journalism.
Consider Mary Alice Williams, not only a former anchor but an executive at CNN before she jumped to NBC, where she languished for four years until leaving last fall.
Now, Williams is a corporate spokesperson for NYNEX, the Northeast regional telecommunications company.
``My job,'' she intones in a current commercial, ``is to stay on top of what they're doing and keep you posted.''
``They'' is NYNEX. But NYNEX, of course, is not only her beat. It's also her boss.
``It's something I believe in,'' Williams has said of her new assignment. But can WE believe HER, at least the way we used to when she covered not NYNEX, but news - and when she was free, and obliged, to play it like it lay?
What makes Sullivan and Williams valuable as corporate shills - their prominence and credibility - came thanks to the audience they reported to as journalists. Should they trade on this identity when they voice not the news, but a company line - even if ``it's something I believe in'' or can ``help people''? Or have they broken faith with the viewer?
If so, they wouldn't be the first.
Linda Ellerbee, the former correspondent at NBC, then ABC, got flak for flacking for Maxwell House coffee in commercials that depicted her as an anchor of a mock newscast.
Joan Lunden has appeared in Vaseline Intensive Care commercials, at least one of which simulated a newscast, even as, in real life, she co-anchored ABC's ``Good Morning America.''
Should these TV stars be held to a higher standard than other celebrities?
Perhaps not, at least in the case of Kathleen Sullivan. Despite her roles in TV news, she served more as a source of charm than information. She is remembered not for bold scoops, but for boldly displaying her graying hair, for the sweaters she wore while covering the 1984 Olympics, for her short skirts while anchoring the morning news.
This is her legacy, preparing her well for the world of advertising: I'm not a journalist, but I used to play one on TV.
More power to her.
Meanwhile, the onus is on the viewer to parse the value of the message from the dazzle of the messenger.
As ever, buyers beware. As Sullivan might say, you're all in this together.
by CNB