O.J. INTERVIEW A MIXED BAG\BET program logs station's highest rating.

Byline: Janet Gilmore Daily News Staff Writer

For Ed Gordon, it may have been the interview of his career.

By pulling off a one-hour session with O.J. Simpson, the Black Entertainment Television news anchor accomplished what the "big boys," such as those at NBC and CNN, didn't do - and catapulted himself and his cable station to wider fame.

The 35-year-old newsman's interview Wednesday with Simpson, who refused to talk about key elements of the murder case, received mixed reviews - something the Detroit native fully expected.

"I went into this knowing that Thursday morning some people would say I was too soft or too hard," Gordon told the Daily News.

Gordon said he believes the interview was fair and, at the same time, provided viewers a glimpse of Simpson's emotions.

Indeed, Simpson's voice grew thick with emotion as he pleaded for the public to leave him alone. He spoke sternly and bitterly about the notion he should show more sorrow over the death of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson; keep a lower profile and perhaps leave Los Angeles.

Gordon's interview earned record ratings for Washington, D.C.-based BET, which reaches 44.2 million households, although the numbers were small given the subject.

The interview attracted a 6.9 rating - or roughly 3 million households. That's more than triple the previous rating record for BET of 2.0.

A typical BET rating for the 7 p.m. time period on the West Coast - 10 p.m. in the East - is 0.8, so the Simpson interview attracted more than eight times the network's average.

A jury acquitted Simpson of murder in the June 1994 knife slayings of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman. Wednesday's live interview was the most extensive he has given since the Oct. 3 acquittals.

But Simpson refused to answer details about the case because of contractual obligations to the producers of "O.J. Simpson: The Interview," a 2-1/2-hour video to go on sale next month.

Sherrie Mazingo, chair of broadcast journalism for USC, said Gordon did a respectable job. But she said Gordon could have prevented Simpson from repeatedly plugging his video by questioning whether the video really does hold the answers Simpson claimed for it.

"A good interviewer has to bring it home," she said. "They've got to bring closure to an area of questioning or situation."

Without such scrutiny, she said, an interview can become a shameless promotional activity - at best, a soft, feature interview rather than a news interview.

Southwestern University law professor Robert Pugsley, said of Gordon: "He was courteous, but he did not feed him cream puffs. He was quite tenacious."

For his part, Gordon said he was "a little disappointed that he stuck to the idea that if you want the story you can pay $29.95."

At one point during the interview, Gordon beseeched Simpson to "give America something for free."

Despite Simpson's assertions of contractual obligations, the news anchor said he doubts that Simpson's producer would have sued him over a small tidbit that could have whetted the public's appetite for the video.

Gordon said he had been trying to get an interview with Simpson for more than a year.

"We weren't naive," he said. "We knew the timing of the interview and the video was something they (the Simpson camp) wanted to make happen."

Gordon said calls to the station have been positive.

"We've beaten the big boys on a number of occasions," he said, noting exclusive interviews with guests ranging from President Clinton to Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

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PHOTO

Photo Attorney Johnnie Cochran Jr. and O.J. Simpson talk with news anchor Ed Gordon, right, before a live interview. Associated Press