Posted on: Sunday, April 6, 2003

Critics, colleagues target Moore's 'Dirty Laundry'

By Wayne Harada
Advertiser Entertainment Writer

Channel 2 News anchor Joe Moore has raised eyebrows with his "Dirty Laundry" play about the news business. Deborah Booker • The Honolulu Advertiser

Army buddies Pat Sajak and Joe Moore appeared in "The Odd Couple" for Manoa Valley Theatre. Advertiser library photo • 2001

'Dirty Laundry' A drama by Joe Moore, produced by Manoa Valley Theatre 8 p.m. April 18, 4 and 8 p.m. April 19, 4 p.m. April 20 Hawai'i Theatre $37, $27.50, $17.50 528-0506 Featuring: Joe Moore, James MacArthur, Ray Bumatai, Matthew Pedersen, Bill Ogilvie, Sherry Chock Wong, George O'Hanlon, Stephanie Sanchez, Kyle Malis, Greg Howell Directed by: Karen Bumatai

Joe Moore is the unrivaled king of the Hawai'i news anchors and the target of competitors up and down the TV dial here. He's been the 800-pound gorilla in the TV ratings wars for more than a decade, and is Hawai'i's most-watched anchor, as reflected by the February Nielsen sweeps.

Being the top dog has its advantages, and in Moore's case, one of those is having the name recognition and the clout to pursue high-profile artistic endeavors on the side. He has completed two movie projects and a clutch of stage plays, including a new drama called "Dirty Laundry," set in a fictitious television newsroom in present-day Hawai'i. It opens a four-performance run April 18 at the Hawai'i Theatre.

Moore has a penchant for writing plays and screenplays in which he performs, but with "Dirty Laundry" he goes a step further by venturing into the world of TV news. In the process, he's startled his colleagues and critics.

It should be noted for the record that Moore adamantly denies his shop is the setting for the play.

"Yes, the station is No. 1 in the ratings," he said. "And ironically, as the play opens, a new general manager has been named and has fired the news director and replaced him" — which also has happened at KHON-2, although Moore wrote the play a year ago.

Thus, life has imitated art — and it's making a lot of folks uneasy.

Life imitates art

The play was completed six months before Rick Blangiardi became KHON's general manager. Several months later, Blangiardi fired news director Jim McCoy.

Two months ago, Dan Dennison took the news director job at KHON.

"The play is not about Channel 2," insists Moore, who anchors the 5:30, 6 and 10 p.m. newscasts weekdays on the Fox affiliate. "It's my nightmare scenario of what I fear could happen the next time Channel 2 is sold, because it's already happening in so many newsrooms here and on the Mainland."

Given the similarities between the play and real life, Blangiardi and others have been uncomfortable to the point of cutting off KHON public service announcements for the play, a fund-raiser for Manoa Valley Theatre.

Moore said of his script: "I am talking about the lowest-common-denominator style of news that keeps lowering journalistic standards in order to be more and more entertaining and sensational, targeting viewers' emotions, not their brains. In other words, selling out in the pursuit of higher ratings."

He has not offered The Advertiser a peek at the script.

Hitting close to home

Perhaps this time around, Moore has come a little too close to home.

Though they belong to an industry that has become fascinated with reality programming, Moore's colleagues and detractors are somewhat uneasy about this one.

"The situation has caused some high anxiety among management, as well as among others in the newsroom," Moore said of the thin ice he's been treading lately.

In his playwright's notes to the production, Moore says he is "a firm believer in the old adage that a good story is often at its best when the line between truth and fiction remains ambiguous."

He sums up the script of "Dirty Laundry": "In plain talk, it's about an aging TV news anchorman, offering an unflattering look at the world of TV news."

Two other characters may have been modeled after figures in the KHON newsroom, through Moore won't divulge precisely who he might have in mind. Moore acknowledges that he's drawn from fact, but emphasizes that he has mixed in fiction.

"It hits close to home. I understand the concern, with folks reading between the lines," he said. "I sense there is a little of, 'You don't crap where you eat.' But why am I knocking my livelihood? To make the (news) product better, specifically.

"The ironic thing is that this play is not specifically about Channel 2. I say something that I feel others are doing all the time."

Shades of gray

The line between news and entertainment has been eroding, said University of Hawai'i journalism professor Tom Brislin.

Traditionally, mass media separates news and opinion — putting viewpoints on the editorial page, for example — but the division has become indistinct.

Moore straddles that boundary, Brislin said.

"Joe Moore knows TV," Brislin said. "The kind of classic TV — the Bob Sevey, the Walter Cronkite attitude, where news is an oasis within a vast desert of mindless entertainment. In earlier times, there were definite boundaries. Here's the paradox. Joe attacks that, but Joe provides an extremely smooth transition from the entertainment show into the news, and back out. ...

"I remember once, he started the news with a tear (reacting to an 'E.R.' episode)," Brislin said. "Or he would come on after 'Wheel of Fortune' and make reference to Pat Sajak (an old Army buddy). What he's doing, really, is showing that he's just like one of them, the TV watchers. It's an amazing phenomenon of his incredible popularity.

"I don't think he's necessarily the most trusted (anchor). But he's an affable dinner companion to have in your home at 6 o'clock," Brislin said. "Joe's success is the seamless transition from entertainment to news and back to entertainment again. In that respect, he has a unique vantage point to comment on things."

Team effort

Dennison, Channel 2 news director, arrived in Hawai'i after stints with two No. 1 stations: KUSA in Denver and KOAA in Colorado Springs. He is quick to point out Moore's drawing power as a news icon, but uses a sports analogy — that Moore is like John Elway leading the Denver Broncos charge.

"It takes a whole team to work around the quarterback to make the team successful," Dennison said. "But Joe is a unique talent and deserves credit for the tremendous success the station has had, as both NBC and Fox." In 1996, KHON switched networks with KHNL-8.

Brislin noted that viewers stuck with Moore through the network switch, confirming his ratings pull.

"The ratings here certainly exemplify the uniqueness of not only our market, but the uniqueness of Joe and his phenomenon," he said.

"The conventional wisdom is that people stay with the channel of the (news) program they're watching at night. In Hawai'i, they grab the remote and switch to Joe to start the evening news with Joe — and, one presumes, switch away from something else they like. Not even Bart Simpson can dethrone Joe."

At the top

Moore's popularity hasn't insulated KHON from change or market forces.

"It's a testament to Joe and the entire team here that a Fox station is so strong," Dennison said. "When you're No. 1, it's easy to sit there and enjoy it. But No. 1 brings danger and risks: You have to work hard to maintain the position."

Before he came on the job at KHON, Dennison said, there had been, "for lack of a better word, complacency — a natural outgrowth for being No. 1 (at Channel 2). My task, then, is to bring vim and vigor back, to challenge complacency, to encourage the reporters, to draw team performances."

Honolulu's TV affiliates reveal the same trends affecting the business nationwide: consolidated ownerships, budget-tweaking newscasts that rely more on bells and whistles than real reporting, reality-driven network shows, weather as entertainment, and consumer-oriented pieces rather than hard news — though the war in Iraq has since brought the ultimate "reality" show back into the mix.

Competition at issue

The station that Moore works for also finds itself at the center of the debate over the future and manner of TV news.

KHON is part of a duopoly resulting from the Emmis Communications purchase of CBS affiliate KGMB-9 more than a year ago. The move — which has Blangiardi managing both stations, and has consolidated some news production despite separate newsrooms — has been decried routinely as unlawful, because Federal Communications Commission rules forbid one owner to run two of the top four TV stations in a market.

Anticipating loosened regulations, Emmis has been running the two stations with extended waivers from the FCC.

"The indications of the FCC, under President Bush, is that they are going to further deregulate," said Brislin.

"This would further loosen the markets rather than tighten the rules. I think Emmis stands a good chance of ending up running with both stations."

Tough player

Moore's boss, Blangiardi, general manager of Channel 2 as well as Channel 9, is both loved and loathed, depending on the perspective. A former University of Hawai'i linebacker and football coach, his quarter-century career has blended sports and TV.

Blangiardi was affiliated with KGMB and KHNL (when that station was Channel 13) before his "homecoming" under the Emmis deal. Before returning to Hawai'i, he was president of the Los Angeles-based Telemundo Group, made up of 11 mostly Spanish-language stations.

He is known to have an iron fist, unafraid to slash budgets, institute change or mandate policies, according to observers. One thing he never does is discuss personnel matters. He won't say why a reporter was fired, for instance.

Since returning to Hawai'i, Blangiardi has tweaked operations in the Channel 2 and Channel 9 newsrooms, triggering concern from watchdog groups such as the Society of Professional Journalists and the Honolulu Community-Media Council that the worst is yet to come.

He also is one of the few people to have read Moore's script. Afterward, he asked: "You really want to do this play?"

Moore said the play reflected his views on the news scene, but is fictional. The anchor said he was told he wouldn't be stopped for his "cynical outlook at the general state of TV news."

Subsequently, Channel 2 pulled the plug on public service announcements for "Dirty Laundry."

Blangiardi would not comment on that, but said, "I am very supportive of Manoa Valley Theatre in all of its endeavors. However, in this case, we're simply not going to run a promo for this show."

Watching and waiting

Cautious anticipation greets opening night for "Dirty Laundry."

"My position, as far as Joe's play goes, is that it's pure fiction," Blangiardi said. "I'm going to see the play, but I'm not sure it's a must-see."

KHNL general manager John Fink, figuring he might be somewhere in the script, said he'll probably go, too — "yet I have not quite figured out how or when."

Mike Rosenberg, general manager of ABC affiliate KITV-4, former KHON general manager and one-time boss of Moore, said he probably will go "to see what the fuss is all about."

But as a board member at Manoa Valley Theatre, his attendance would be expected.

Moore clearly has touched some nerves, not only in his own shop but at other stations, with his frank discussion about issues that plague his livelihood, his station and his personal taste. But on-air candor always has been one of his trademarks.

When KHON traded its NBC affiliation with KHNL in January 1996 to become a Fox station, Moore lampooned Fox's youth-oriented, sensationalistic programming. He campaigned against the addition of a weather anchor in his nightly newscast, and still plays the maverick.

Even when acknowledging Fox's ratings triumph with such reality series as "American Idol" and "Joe Millionaire," Moore expresses the hope that these trendy favorites will subside in favor of entertainment with substance.

Bandwagon mentality

It is an area where his critics agree with him.

"The reality thing has been overexposed," said Fink, KHNL's general manager. "A lot of the copycats simply aren't making it anymore; the reality craze is contrived."

At its peak, "American Idol's" rating of 25 was phenomenal, Fink said, "and it does tell you people loved the show. But the latest batch of shows is floundering.

"The trouble with the TV industry is that everyone tries to jump on the bandwagon. America's threshold for copycats historically proves to be disappointing."

Fink and his NBC station tied with KGMB in the most recent Nielsen ratings.

Self-reflection

Moore says it was a sense of duty that led him to write a play about the direction of TV news.

"At this point of my career, I didn't want to just sit back and go with the flow. There's something to be said about standing up for what is right.

"If I didn't care, that's one thing. But it's frustrating to see what's been happening — too much touchy-feely stuff. Real news is what matters."

In exposing his stand on the state of TV news, Moore said he was willing to examine some elements of his own image, too.

"In one scene, the anchorman is venting with the station's executive producer about how the profession has gone downhill. That's where I get in some licks about ratings, sensationalism, touchy-feely journalism.

"When the news director blows up and says, 'You're just a performer reading material written by somebody else,' it's an issue (I confront) in real life," he said.

Indeed, his critics in the news biz, from print to broadcast journalism, have frowned on Moore's perceived rip-and-read practices, grousing that he doesn't report the news but merely reads it from a monitor.

"I address this in the play," said Moore. "I generally report from the anchor's desk. It's a legitimate form in the broadcasting business."

He cited frequent instances of live interviews from the news set, getting one-on-ones with the governor, mayor and members of the city council.

"When we throw a live question to a reporter, I usually ask a question, doing a reporter's job from the anchor's desk," Moore said. "People forget about this."

Said Brislin: "I certainly know those (occasional impromptu) questions from Moore are not scripted. He has not spoken to reporters.

"It is a form of reporting to ask those questions. My feeling is that he often asks the kinds of questions he feels viewers still have unanswered in their minds. Sometimes, it's questions he thinks are important; often he has caught his reporters off guard. But he's doing it in the interest of the (viewing) public."

In any case, Moore's approach continues to resonate with viewers.

"Joe is the extremely well-paid Everyman," said Brislin. "He really reflects the voice and position of the people."

• • •

Joe Moore

• Full name: Joseph Brice Moore Jr.
• Age: 55
• Family: Wife Teresa; son Bryce, 5; daughter JoAnn, 30, from a previous marriage
• Pets: Cat, Constanze; in cat heaven are Amadeus and Miss Kitty
• Hobbies: "Playing with my son," writing plays, acting, hiking, attending plays, movies, and concerts.
• High school: 'Aiea, Class of 1965
• College/military: University of Maryland, majored in communications and history. Left after sophomore year, enlisted in Army, served two tours in Vietnam, 1968 and '69 (first with 25th Infantry Division in Cu Chi, then American Forces Vietnam Network in Saigon)
• Drives: Lexus LS 430 and Toyota pickup truck
• Goal yet to attain: Help raise my son to be a responsible, caring, fun-loving adult.
• Greatest fears: Personal — That I may die before my son is grown and on his own. Professional — That the next time KHON TV is sold, our news department will become like so many others today, like the one I depict in my play "Dirty Laundry" — a news department that keeps lowering its journalistic standards to be more entertaining and sensational; in short, selling out serious news in the pursuit of higher ratings.

• • •

The Moore, the merrier

Ten things you probably know about Joe Moore simply by watching his newscasts:

1. He loves Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
2. He adores Will Rogers.
3. He's performed as Mozart and as Will Rogers.
4. He frequently shows up on "Hawai'i Five-O" and "Magnum, P.I." reruns.
5. He likes to throw a curve ball to reporters — with questions — which in his mind is a form of reporting.
6. He has never endorsed the notion of a weather anchor as part of his newscasts — but had one briefly.
7. He commonly signs off his nightly newscasts with a "Have you ever noticed?" factoid or trivia.
8. He occasionally dines with wife Teresa between the 6 and 10 p.m. newscasts.
9. At the height of "E.R." popularity, and before KHNL complied with "clock time," he would clue in his Fox viewers about the endings of the NBC series about 10 minutes into his newscasts.
10. Like most male anchors on competing stations, he had a job as a sports anchor before settling into news.

• • •

Across the dials

Acting sidekick: When Alema Harrington joins Joe Moore on weeknight newscasts as KHON-2 sports anchor on April 21, they'll have something in common: acting credits.

Harrington, who assumes the sports desk April 14, has done TV acting stints ("One West Waikiki," "The Byrds of Paradise," "Rest In Peace"), just like Moore ("Hawai'i Five-O" and "Magnum, P.I." episodes).

Who's on first: Here's how the four TV stations ranked in prime-time viewership during the February sweeps, according to the Nielsen ratings: KHON (Fox) finished first, KGMB (CBS) was second, KHNL (NBC) was third and KITV (ABC) was fourth. Prime time is 7 to 10 p.m. Monday through Saturday, 6 to 10 p.m. Sunday.

Reality bites: Reality shows — with survivors, bachelors, kiddie talent, wannabe idols — will continue to flourish, said KHNL general manager John Fink. "The bottom line is, if it's not worthy of watching — when people switch channels — it will be time for change," he said. Remember "Who Wants Be a Millionaire?" and "Weakest Link" on prime time? No longer.

Catch a wave: The WB, now a prime-time player, makes its foray into reality with "Boarding House: North Shore," filmed in Hawai'i. Debuting June 18 on KFVE-5, it chronicles the lives of seven surfers: Sunny Garcia, Myles Padaca, Damien Hobgood, Danny Fuller, Veronica Kay, Holly Beck and Chelsea Georgeson. The six episodes will have Sunday encore screenings.

Commentary: John Fink, general manager of KHNL-8, writes his own "Think About It" editorials, which periodically cap the newscast.