MANY HAPPY RETURNS LESSONS OF 2000 PROMISE TO SHAPE TV COVERAGE OF THIS YEAR'S PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION.

Byline: David Kronke Television Writer

TV news divisions swear they'll do better this year covering the presidential election. They pretty much have to improve their coverage, which on election night 2000 collapsed into a shambles. (You can start judging tonight as they report on Super Tuesday.)

``The country was divided right down the middle after the 2000 election,'' says CNN anchor Judy Woodruff, ``and since then, we've seen the country split again over Iraq and over a number of President Bush's policies. There's going to be enormous interest in this election. I've even heard predictions that we may see the biggest turnout this year that we've seen in a long, long time.''

Tim Russert, moderator of NBC's ``Meet the Press,'' observes, ``There are two very important issues now confronting our country, and I think they're inextricably linked. One is the economy and one is Iraq. If the economy is strong and Iraq is secure, (Bush wins) comfortably. If the economy is strong and Iraq is so-so, very close race. If the economy is soft and Iraq's in trouble, very difficult re-election.''

Which makes TV's contribution to our understanding the candidates and the issues all the more vital this campaign season. And yes, those working for the broadcast and cable news outlets promise better behavior this year.

Mark Halperin, ABC News political director, divides the campaign into three major categories: ``One, the issues; two, the horse race; and three, the candidates' character and personality. Viewers are getting more information on all three than ever before. It's wrong to ignore the horse race, but it's easy to be undisciplined in covering it. Broadcast news reaches tens of millions of people, and voters connect how they vote with what they understand the government will do.''

Princell Hair, executive vice president and general manager of CNN/U.S., declares that although issues are rarely easily explicated, TV journalists must devote the time necessary to make them clear to viewers.

``It's incumbent upon journalists to make the important interesting,'' Hair says. ``Important stories may not always be interesting, but they're important. For us, it's all about finding the right characters to drive the story. In a 24-hour environment, time is not really as pressing an issue as it would be in a half-hour nightly broadcast.''

But Michele Mitchell, former CNN Headline News anchor and author of ``The Latest Bombshell,'' a novel about diminishing civil liberties in America after Sept. 11, says her own experience suggests the exact opposite.

``You're not given the time to explain things to viewers,'' Mitchell declares. ``Traditionally, the presidential budget is a press release, a wish list that usually goes straight into the circular file, but is covered like a momentous occasion - Congress has a budget, too, usually a more realistic one. But explaining that was deemed too complicated.

``And the USA Patriot Act - many members of Congress who voted it in almost immediately regretted it, and we could've put them on TV but we didn't. It's astonishing to me that that was not considered a big enough story to put time into it.''

Jon Stewart, host of the satirical newsmagazine ``The Daily Show'' - which, oddly enough, won a Peabody Award for its coverage of the 2000 election - dismisses TV news outright: ``It's become a train wreck. The politicians have figured out the game and there's just been this weird symbiotic relationship that has developed so that the general role of the press as the sort of the watchdog (has been subsumed). They're much more interested now in the process and the strategy than the reality of what issues mean to anybody.''

``The horse race is more compelling as entertainment than analyzing nuances,'' notes Robert Thompson, founding director of Syracuse University's Center for the Study of Popular Television. ``TV competes for viewers in an environment that's not amenable to the seminar form.''

``CBS Evening News'' anchor Dan Rather, surprisingly, does not disagree. ``The undertow is so strong to concentrate on the polls - and let me make it clear, I do not except myself from this criticism. Why can't we break this cycle? I don't know the answer.

``The problem is, you start out saying, 'I'm not going to concentrate on the horse race this year,' and then the next thing you know, that undertow develops. Part of it has to do with competition. That's not an excuse; I'm trying to explain how it happens. But I can say, one of the things we're going to try to do at CBS News this year, we're dedicated to quality. I know that sounds empty, but we believe it and we're really trying to deliver on it.''

Of course, 2000's biggest debacle was the inaccurate reporting of election results from Florida. Voter News Service, the group responsible for gathering tallies from precincts, has been scrapped.

``We have a new consortium called NEP, National Election Pool,'' says Marty Ryan, executive producer of Fox News Channel political coverage. ``We have a totally different system, and at least at Fox News we have two or three redundant systems about how to get results and analyze them. Early on, we're going to be looking very carefully at how the system works. Because of the primary process, we have ample opportunity to see how the system works, but we're going to be very, very cautious about how we report the results.''

Of course, Fox News was instrumental in the confusion - it announced that George W. Bush had won Florida first, based on projections collected by Bush's cousin, John Ellis. In their competitive zeal, the other networks followed, giving Republicans the appearance, at least, of victory and the right to cry foul at a recall.

Fox News anchor Brit Hume defends Ellis, recalling a discussion on the afternoon of Election Day. ``It was very clear that this victory that the Bush folks had hoped for was not materializing. And I had a conversation with him about what he thought. He looked at me quite calmly and put his finger across his throat as to the fortunes of the Bush campaign. That was a very cold analysis of what he thought and saw.

``And he was extremely cautious throughout much of that night as to what he was going to say. He also knew that his cousin Jeb, with a political organization in Florida, was in a pretty good position to analyze whether the data they were getting was convincing or not. And oh, people thought it was terrible that he was talking to the Bushes.

``He's gone and he won't be back, I'm afraid,'' Hume opines. ``But I miss him. He was a very good professional. He couldn't help the fact that George W. Bush was his cousin.''

One challenge confronting journalists is getting quality time with the president. Media analyst Ken Auletta, in a recent New Yorker article, covered the White House's inaccessibility to reporters. After three years in office, Bush has granted only 11 press conferences; by contrast, at the same point in his presidency, his father had met with reporters 71 times.

Auletta quoted ABC News anchor Peter Jennings: ``There is a feeling among some members of the press corps that you are either favored by the administration or not, and that will have something to do with your access.'' Jennings, who has interviewed every president since Nixon, has not been granted an audience with Bush. Neither has Dan Rather or anyone with The New York Times.

``It's always a challenge to cover an incumbent president who's running for re-election,'' notes CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer. ``With the presidency come certain advantages.

``Every politician, not just the president, rewards their friends and punishes their enemies,'' Blitzer adds. ``That's the nature of politics.''

Nonetheless, Thompson believes Auletta's revelations ``ought to be told in more places than the New Yorker, but it's received very little coverage. Part of it is a fear of fulfilling the stereotype of the liberal media. They're afraid. There was a while where there was a good deal of fear that the journalists would appear to be what a lot of commentators accused them of being.''

``It's important that the press cover the president and stand up as an advocate for the public interest,'' says ABC's Halperin. ``If the administration is being inaccessible, we have a duty to report that.'' To date, ABC hasn't filed such a report.

Thompson attributes that fear to the Fox News Channel's virulent railing against ``liberal'' media, which has cowed other news outlets into failing to ask tough questions (particularly in the run-up to the war with Iraq) out of concern with being branded liberal or, even, traitorous.

``That's what one of the great strategies - accusing others of not being fair and balanced - does, to a chilling effect,'' Thompson says. ``And that's what (Fox) wanted.''

And again, CBS' Rather - who, alone among his colleagues, must be taking honesty pills - does not dispute the charge.

``When you have hot topics that are almost radioactive in terms of political feelings and the danger of running it, fear rules almost every newsroom in the country,'' Rather admits. ``One is the fear you're going to take criticism. You may say, 'Look, we need to do a piece - asking some serious questions about war profiteering.' There's always a wee small voice that says, 'You do that, you're going to pay the price.' Somebody on one political side or another - including some of your journalistic competitors, who may or may not have their partisan agenda - they're going to fall all over you. So why cover these things? That's one fear covering politics.

``I'm not going to kid you,'' Rather concludes. ``I worry a lot about fear in the newsroom, the fear of either getting left behind for some kind of new trend in journalism and/or the fear of having to pay too heavy a price if you handle something that's politically controversial.''

David Kronke, [phone]

david.kronke(at)dailynews.com

Tune in to Super Tuesday

TV coverage of Super Tuesday primaries and the California ballot propositions will be scattered because polls in the East close at 5 p.m. PST while state polls close at 8 p.m.

KCBS (Channel 2) will insert updates throughout prime-time programming and cover the election during its 11 p.m. newscast with a five-minute national wrap-up at 11:35.

KNBC (Channel 4) will do cut-ins during its prime-time coverage, and its 11 p.m. newscast will feature ticker updates crawling along the bottom of the screen.

KTLA (Channel 5), KTTV (Channel 11) and KCOP (Channel 13) will cover the elections during their regular nightly newscasts at 10 p.m.

KCAL (Channel 9), which usually broadcasts news from 8 to 11 p.m., will do so, focusing, of course, on the primary.

CNN and the Fox News Channel will have updates and programming throughout the night, starting after polls in the East close.

- Daily News

CAPTION(S):

7 photos, box

Photo:

(1 -- cover -- color) TV POLITICS

How the mistakes of 2000 have changed the way the news covers the elections

Associated Press

(2) Dan Rather, center - with CBS News colleagues Ed Bradley, left, Bob Schieffer and Lesley Stahl.

(3) Host Jon Stewart, right, listens to guest commentator Bob Dole on ``The Daily Show.'' The Comedy Central program won a Peabody Award for its coverage of the 2000 campaign.

(4) JUDY WOODRUFF: Divided nation means increased election interest.

(5) TIM RUSSERT: Economy and Iraq are critically intertwined.

(6) BRIT HUME: Bias not a factor in Fox's reporting of Florida results.

(7) MARK HALPERIN: It's about issues, polls and personalities.

Box:

Tune in to Super Tuesday (see text)