The Akron Beacon Journal from Akron, Ohio • Page 17

The Beacon Journal Sunday, November 28, 1993, Page B3 With sale of WAKC, airwaves are even more airhead-friendly The announcement last week of the sale of Akron television station WAKC to a home-shopping network was a disturbing piece of news for several reasons. First, the fact that Akron will lose its only affiliation with a major network di minishes the importance of the market. Second, speculation that Channel 23 will forsake its local news broadcasts raises the possibility that the city would be left with no local television news presence. Mavbe it won't han- pen. The purchaser of the station, Val-ueVision of Minnesota, said in a news release that it would convert WAKC to a shopping channel but would retain a local news presence.

And employees at Channel 23 said they were told that the station Dale Allen would keep a local news presence on the air. Besides, the owners of another local station, Channel 29, say if WAKC does away with its news program, they will invite the whole Channel 23 news team over to their station. Still, there appears to be reason for skepticism. The new owners of WAKC, who still must receive FCC approval of the sale, are known elsewhere for running "12 hours of live, call-in catalog followed by 12 hours of infomercials," according to a recent story in the Detroit Free Press. And, even if they did continue the news broadcast, it would probably be sandwiched between the seemingly nonstop commercials for cubic zirconias and exercise machines.

The conversion of the station from a full-service station to a shopping channel was unexpected. But, in truth, there shouldn't be too many surprises left for us as we witness the unraveling of the television industry that most of us remember from years past. The introduction of cable turned the industry topsy-turvy. The major networks, which seemed to own rights to the airwaves during prime time, steadily began losing audiences to the proliferating channels that became available. Channel 23 undoubtedly suffered from the competition.

Plus, it was always in the unenviable position of being a smaller station in a larger television market (Cleveland), unable to attract advertisers or audience, despite its network affiliation. Much of its disadvantage in early years had to do with its location as a UHF station, among the channels numbered from 14 through 83. In the early years, many television sets were never equipped to receive those channels, so they became second-class citizens to the VHF stations, 2 through 13. That perception remained even after the government forced television makers to make the higher-numbered channels available. Moreover, Channel 23's image as a low-budget, second-rate station was perpetuated by the station's inattention to quality.

The station had a few people who genuinely cared about the quality of its local news broadcasts, notably the news director, Mark Williamson. The fact that the news broadcast, however shallow, paid attention to serious Akron news remains a credit to Williamson and his staff. Still, much of what we saw through the years was only a few cuts above amateur hour and a whole class behind the more sophisticated presentations on many of the Cleveland stations. And such comparisons undoubtedly did great damage to Channel 23's ratings. The prospect of no locally developed television newscasts is even more disturbing because presentations of radio news also have diminished to a point close to non-existence.

We are left with a plethora of talk shows, shopping channels and syndicated blatherers whose views sometimes are equated with fact, even when any fact worth its salt would not get within shouting distance of the characters espousing them. So we are left with the view that the broadcast media, which broke on the scene with so much promise several decades ago, are now wallowing in a slough of emptiness, threatened with death by trivia. As we said, it is disturbing. Allen is editor of the Beacon Journal. Revival of special-counsel law invites abuse by state I flu Washington: It could have been a useful lesson in American justice the other day when the 6th U.S.

Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati scolded the Justice Department. The department's offense was to sup press evidence in the proceedings against John Demjanjuk leading to his extradition to Israel, several years ago, for trial as "Ivan the Terrible," a legendarily cruel death-camp guard during World War n. But Demjanjuk, now cleared by Israeli Edwin M. YoderJr. courts, seems not to be "Ivan the Terrible" after all.

And officials in the Justice Department apparently had reason to suspect that he was not. The psychology is understandable. Demjanjuk is not an appealing character. If he was not the said "Ivan the Terrible," he may have misrepresented his past and may have gained U.S. citizenship fraudulently.

But no such suspicions justify prosecutorial misrepresentation, and the Cincinnati court did not shrink from that charge in describing his pursuit by the Justice Department. It is hard to think of a more despicable or dangerous practice than the abuse of prosecutorial discretion to trifle with the reputation and liberties of citizens, whatever they are suspected of doing. But the ethical climate of many district attorneys' shops is that of a cat-and-mouse game, in which no tricks to trap the mice are frowned upon. In a roundup of recent court rebukes for federal prosecutors, The Washington Post collected some choice examples of judicial reprimand "disgrace," "numerous misrepresentations," "win at any cost" attitudes, "nu- Fair hearing From an editorial in the Providence (R.I.) Sunday Journal A three-member panel of the federal appeals court in Washington, D.C., held that it is unconstitutional to ban homosexuals from (military) service on the basis of their sexual preferences. We think the appeals court finding is both correct and fair.

As the court noted, barring homosexuals from service is an act of pure prejudice. Gays deserve the same chance to prove themselves without having to hide who they are. What better place to start dismantling prejudice than in such large institutions as the Army and the Navy, where reluctant heterosexuals, forced to work side by side with gays in potentially life-threatening situations, would get a firsthand opportunity to put their biases to the test. Thisweek 100 years ago: O.C. Barber, president of the Diamond Match verified a rumor that the Akron plant would be moving by announcing plans to build a plant in Barberton that he described as "the model match factory of the world." He said the move was necessary to improve the system of manufacturing matches.

75 years ago: Summit County sent 12,516 men to the Army during the war. That number Marcy Kaptur may add hat theres iWanother crive-ty LUCKUVICU AliuiU Constitution starting to prowl around the park. The high-powered gun used to kill the bear had been taken from gangsters "Pretty Boy" Floyd and Bert Walker, who had killed an Akron police officer 14 years earlier with the gun. 25 years ago: The Firestone Park Branch Library on Firestone Parkway, across from the yellow-brick offices of Firestone, was closed after 48 years of operation. Patrons of the branch were served temporarily by BookmobDe stops in the area, while the new downtown branch on Main Street was being built.

to Senate race She would face strong opposition, first in Joel Hyatt, Sen. Metzenbaum's son-in-law and heir-apparent, and then possibly in Dr. Bernadine Healy, the Cleveland physician who is being touted as a GOP candidate for the Senate seat. Hyatt, a millionaire in his own right, is well-placed and well-financed to go for the job, and Dr. Healy also is regarded as a formidable candidate.

Despite her popularity and her relatively young age (47), Kaptur harbors no illusions about such a race. She knows it would be tough, especially raising the millions of dollars necessary to run a viable campaign. As she put it, "To figure out where you get $8 million is a very difficult challenge. I don't have a godfather out there." Also, as a member of the powerful House Appropriations Committee, she is well-aware that she would have to give up a lot of seniority and influence to make the Senate run. And, if lightning didn't strike in 1994, there remains the option of trying for the seat vacated by a retiring Sen.

John Glenn in 1998. What Kaptur has, however, is a strong work ethic and an ability to influence people with her arguments and her personality. She concedes that her job takes as much as 80 percent of her time. She returns to Toledo every weekend to visit constituents and her mother and bachelor brother in the family home in one of Toledo's working-class neighborhoods. This hasn't hurt her popularity, either.

The congresswoman, in short, does her homework, a hallmark of her career since graduating from the University of Madison-Wisconsin and earning a master's degree in urban planning from the University of Michigan. Her jobs have included director of planning for the National Center for Urban Ethnic Affairs and assistant director of urban affairs in the White House domestic policy staff of the Carter administration. Kaptur's is not a household name statewide, but it is not hard to envisage her running a strong campaign if she can get her name known and can attract money. She has the background and the intensity to take on that challenge and, if elected, she would be one of the hardest-working senators on Capitol Hill. Knoivlton is a retired editorial writer for The Blade in Toledo.

This is another in a serkx qf reports from other points in Oh io. "asgt merous instances of invidiously egregious conduct," and, of course, "lack of supervision and control exercised by (superiors)." Is it not strange, then, that just as the 6th Circuit was roasting the Justice Department in the Demjanjuk case, Congress was reinstating the lapsed "special prosecutor" law? Under this section of the 1978 Ethics in Government Act, prosecutorial discretion attains a scope and sweep never before countenanced in American law. And in matters often supercharged with politics, too. This law was an unfortunate product of Congress misguided response to the Watergate scandal. Congress assumed that Watergate showed that elected executive officials could not be trusted, as they had been for two centuries, to police themselves by appointing special investigators on appropriate occasions.

The assumption was wrong, even as to Watergate. Special prosecutors, appointed for that investigation alone, did a thorough job of clearing up the Watergate abuses. Intoxicated by the ethical indignation and sanctimony of the hour, however, Congress ignored the record and made the appointment of special prosecutors routine. They are now a fixture of the Washington scene, appointed at the slightest breath of alleged scandal. A special prosecutor decided that President Carter's White House chief of staff, Ham Jordan, the first target of the law, had not, as charged, used cocaine at a New York nightclub.

The investigation put Jordan out of action for weeks at a crucial time for the Carter administration and left him with a huge legal bill. Most subsequent investigations have been in the same league of pettiness. But the true evil is the abuse of the principle of executive accountability. Prosecutors are executive officials. Given their power, which the head of the Justice Department's office of professional responsibility correctly calls "awesome," they should be answerable to the voters, by way of elected superiors.

Their duties and powers should be minutely defined and restricted by law. In contrast, special prosecutors under the 1978 law, now renewed, are appointed by a panel of judges and, in practice, unaccountable. Their writs are hunting licenses to dig at will for anything discreditable to the targeted individual. Politics is an honorable but not a saintly profession. With unlimited powers to investigate, special prosecutors can usually find something amiss.

So here is the question of the hour: If, among the thousands of federal prosecutors routinely employed, some are so far off the reservation as to arouse the wrath of judges, what does Congress think it's doing when it renews the yet greater discretion of "special Does it see no connection, and no timely warning in what the judges say? Yoder is a Washington Post columnist. The story quoted a Los Angeles body piercer as saving that she has been kept very busy piercing eyebrows, nipples and even her own tongue. One pierced person said she was inspired to have her navel pierced after seeing the 'beautiful decoration' in the nipples of the actor Jaye Davidson, who appeared in The Crying Game." (I didn't see that movie, and that's good because I'm impressionable and easily inspired.) The story offers some sociological analysis as to why so many people are dangling jewelry from their noses, navels, nipples and other body parts. "With the fragmenting of the former communist empire, the not-so-gorgeous mosaic of New York, and demands for secession from Ukraine to Staten Island, maybe it is not surprising that fashion should reflect tribalism." I suppose that makes sense. The Soviet Union collapses, and the natural reaction is to go out and get your nose pierced.

Or one day you notice that New York is crowded and messy, so you instinctively start wearing gold rings in your nipple. After all, you have to do something to show you care. The story also gives some history of this sort of thing. "The idea of decorating the body is ancient history. Nose rings were worn in India, throughout the Middle East, and by tribal groups like the -Berbers as a only represented men who were drafted and did not include men who volunteered.

Akron alone contained more than 60,000 men of military age within its borders, and military board physicians examined 28,720 men. 50 years ago: Sammy, a huge black bear that had once been a mascot for the Ohio State football team at the Pitt-Ohio game, was shot by Akron police at Summit Beach park after slipping his collar and country, specifically the economically depressed Northeast. Although she ended up on the losing side, she certainly did not do her own reputation any harm as a champion of the workers of northwestern Ohio. Of course, this is Democratic territory at least in Toledo and since she took the job in 1982 away from one-term Republican Ed Weber, she has breezed through each later election with little opposition. What all this is leading up to at the moment is the possibility of Kaptur running for the U.S.

Senate seat being vacated by retiring Sen. Howard Metzenbaum next year. Her record in Congress, and particularly her high-profile fight against NAFTA and for tough ethics legislation, has people talking about her as a potential candidate for the Senate. ple are indifferent to global affairs. Little wonder they are out of the mainstream.

But on my way back from lunch, I had a flashback. And the memory made me again proud to be a Chicagoan. I had remembered a story I wrote at least 12 years ago. And that story proves that Chicago was many years ahead of New York at being in the mainstream. And I exclusively reported it.

It was about a young man named Adolfo, who was the leader of a Northwest Side street gang. A tribal group. One night, Adolfo forced his erotic attentions on a young woman. She had him arrested, and they went to court. Adolfo denied everything, but the woman said she could prove it.

She said a rather private part of Adolfo's body had been pierced, and that was where he wore a gold ring. It was not the sort of thing a woman would forget. The judge asked Adolfo to lower his trousers. He did, and there was the evidence, gold ring and all. Of course, the judge didn't realize that Adolfo had leaped into the mainstream.

He thought he was just a creep and sent him to prison. It just shows that a person can be too far ahead of the times. Had it happened today, Adolfo could have said: "The secession of Ukraine made me do it." Royko is a Chicago Tiibune columnist. For truly piercing analysis, head for Staten Island TOLEDO: In the bitter fighting over the North American Free Trade Agreement in the nation's capital, few members of Congress were more visible than Marcy Kaptur, representative for the 9th U.S. House District essentially Toledo and I Lucas County.

Kaptur, now in her sixth consecutive term in the House, was in the forefront of opposition to the NAFTA accord, pushed so hard by President Clinton, the leader of her own Democratic party. And she 'was immovable in her stand against the agreement, contending loudly and repeatedly that it would cost jobs in an already hard-hit part of the sign of wealth and status for marriageable women. The more metal weighing down the nose (some nose rings had to be attached to an ear piece), the bigger the bridal dowry." Ah, the good old days. And they're returning; these are exciting times. After I read about this new mainstream trend, I went to lunch.

As I strolled through downtown Chicago, I looked closely at other pedestrians, but I didn't spot even one nose ring. And I was embarrassed for myself and my fellow Chicagoans. Why are we always so far behind? We're only 800 miles from New York, an hour or so by plane. Yet, the New York Times story said: "In the downtown street scenes, both sexes display rings through the nostrils and multiple earrings. But here in the third-largest city in the United States, I didn't see even one ring through a nose, or even bells on their toes.

As it was a cold day, I can't speak for nipple rings, but I didn't see anyone who looked the type. When I got to my lunch place, I took a stool at the bar and said to a couple of acquaintances: "With the secession of Ukraine and other former Soviet states, have you felt a surge of tribalism that might lead you to having your nose or nipples pierced?" They stared at me, then got up and moved to the en1 of the bar. Some peo rvnowuon ir. 1, Chicago: Although I'm not certain what the "mainstream" is, I've always thought I was part of it. Family, home, mortgage, job, dog, beer, pizza, Cub games, button-down shirts, stained ties, minivan, Pings and a nerdy watch.

But now I have seri ous doubts. Whatever the "mainstream" is, I appear to be outside of it. I realized this the other day when I read a news story in the New York Times. The headline said: "Body piercing moves into the mainstream." And the story began: "It is easy to pinpoint the moment whert body piercing went mainstream. Christy Turlington came out at a London fashion show, her midriff bared between two slices of creamy knit.

And there in the middle of her navel was a ring. "The next day, Naomi Campbell was tugging at the waistband of her Vivienne Westwood micro-mini kilt to show the world that anything Christy could do, so could she. A gold ring set with a small pearl pierced her navel." The story went on to say that body piercing has become the rage. And not just navels, either. Nostrils and all sorts of places, public and private, if anything is private these days.

i i mine Royko A.