THIS ... IS THE NEW CNN.

Byline: David Kronke

Jonathan Klein, six weeks into his tenure as president of CNN/US, wasn't working for the cable news network last fall when he watched Jon Stewart take down Tucker Carlson and Ed Begala on their crankily contentious debate show, ``Crossfire,'' informing the two that they were ``hurting America.''

``I found myself agreeing with him - not with the personal attacks, but with the points he was making,'' Klein confessed Wednesday during the TV Critics Association's semiannual press tour in Universal City. Klein recently announced that he was canceling ``Crossfire'' and not renewing Carlson's contract; the conservative pundit, who also has a show on PBS, is packing his bow tie and heading for MSNBC.

``CNN is up for a lot of challenges,'' Klein continued. ``We want to think of the next way to talk to the public about the issues, and I'm confident we can find that way. 'Crossfire' has been on for 22 years - the electorate has changed in the past 20 years, but 'Crossfire' hadn't.''

Klein was convinced that Carlson was no longer a good fit with the network after watching him anchor Aaron Brown's prime-time news hour over the holidays. ``He was far more interested in the debating, the live interaction with the guests, than in being the solid center of gravity for a newscast,'' said Klein. ``It was very easy to make the decision after that. We said, 'You've made it clear what you want to do - we don't have room for that. Let's not stand in each other's way.' ''

Though debate programs featuring overheated discourse of the sort that ``Crossfire'' helped pioneer are proliferating at the other cable news networks, Klein said, ``There's no need to program the way everyone else does. You'd be smart to go in another direction. It makes for lousy TV, ultimately. It was a great idea, but jeez, after 22 years we can come up with something better.''

But Klein declined to put on airs as to CNN's new mission: `` 'Taking the high ground' sounds boring. We want to create arresting programming that takes viewers beyond the headlines in extremely inventive ways.''

One of the significant manners in which Klein hopes to accomplish this, he said, is to ``encourage our on-air reporters and anchors to allow themselves to be human. Everyone is so robot-like.'' He pointed to CNN's recent coverage of the tsunami in Southeast Asia, which was both acclaimed and helped boost the network's ratings.

``(Anchor/reporter) Anderson Cooper responded as a human being first and not as an anchorman,'' Klein enthused. ``Our White House correspondent John King went with the Secretary of State to survey the area, but stayed behind when Colin Powell went home because he was so moved by what he saw. It's a human story.''

Klein also hopes to allow reporters more time to tell their stories. ``Look at '60 Minutes' - it's still the most popular newsmagazine, and they don't hurtle through their stories,'' he said.

While CNN attempts to assert more serious, if empathetic journalism, however, its glib sister network, CNN Headline News, will be dumbing itself even further down: CNN News Group president Jim Walton announced a new prime-time programming block on Headline News debuting Feb. 21, featuring a nightly hour of entertainment news, followed by a nightly hour that will generally follow the biggest or most lurid trials of the day, hosted by Court TV personality Nancy Grace.

Many hours of Michael Jackson trial coverage seem in the offing for Grace, but Walton vowed, ``We will do our very best to be responsible in our (Jackson) coverage.''

David Kronke, [phone]

david.kronke(at)dailynews.com

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CNN/US president Jonathan Klein wants the network's on-air reporters ``to be human.''