The Orlando Sentinel from Orlando, Florida • Page 31

I The Orlando Sentinel If 2 WEDNESDAY, September 4, 1991 The man who made Dan Fielding synonymous with sleaze TV People, E-6 Imfm mm flmr lis torn Greg Dawson rf-itr TELEVISION 1 113 For professional students, graduation is the last thing on their minds. By Loraine O'Connell OF THE SENTINEL STAFF Ask today's college students why they're in school and you'll get a blunt reply: "To get a job that will support me in the manner to which I've become accustomed" (thanks to Mom and Dad). And to do it as fast as possible. They plead to get credit hours from other schools accepted; they scramble to get into required classes before they close; they grovel to get passing grades so they won't have to waste precious time repeating a course. In the midst of all this manic matriculation can be found that hardy breed known as "professional students." They're easy to spot.

They're in no hurry. To them, education is like a book they never want to end. "A lot of people say, 'I want to be done by a certain My attitude has always been very casual," said Marcia Ferrell, 30, a part-time registration clerk at a health clinic. The Orlando woman didn't even intend to get a degree when she started taking courses at Valencia Community College back in 1983. She was studying subjects that interested her, such as geology and real estate.

"I got my real estate license through Valencia," she said. "I just liked going to school." Then the higher-education bureaucracy kicked in. I knew it they said, Tou only need three more classes to get an A.A. associate in arts Ferrell figured she may as well get the AA, then move on to the University of Central Florida. But upon entering UCF in 1988, she found herself sidetracked into pursuing a bachelor's degree rather than learning for the sake of learning.

The degree became paramount, she said, because of the pressure to pick a major (she chose economics) and the guilt she felt over the cost of her classes. But she soon discovered that a degree program meant taking courses she had no interest in or aptitude for. Her less-than-stellar grades in some of her required courses lowered her grade point average. She ended up being suspended for the summer 1991 term and denied re-admission for the fall semester. But that's OK with her.

"I took it the denial as an omen to be honest with myself and re-evaluate why I'm still going to school. It's because I like to be a student and enjoy learning new things." She figures if she's readmitted in January she'll complete her degree eventually. If she's not readmitted, she'll take classes elsewhere but only in subjects she enjoys. "If I have the money, I'd like to take a class every semester, just any class." Steve Gravely can relate. The" 40-year-old Orlando cab driver has been attending Rollins College Please see STUDENTS, E-3 I HkJEJ re rv.

'l I i i.i lit Ay -I The anchor isn't all that made WCPX sink In letting anchorman Glenn Rinker go after eight years, WCPX-Channel 6 general manager Mike Schweitzer did the right thing for the wrong reason, Because he is the main figurehead of a failing operation, as synonymous with WCPX in the public mind as Hoover and the Depression, Rinker has to go if Channel 6 news is ever to shed its loser image. With his steely gray suits and matching demeanor, Rinker has come to bear an unfortunate resemblance to the dour hard-liners in the Supreme Soviet who can be glimpsed on CNN grimly awaiting a new order that does not include them. But while Rinker (whose contract expires Oct. 31) is the billboard symbol of all that has gone sour at WCPX, he is hardly the main cause, as Schweitzer endeavored to portray him in announcing the move Friday. "Eight years is a long time in television, and you would expect we might be further along than we are," Schweitzer said, tying the station's last-place showing in the Nielsen ratings directly to Rinker.

Yes, eight years is a long time, and since Schweitzer either has forgotten, or would like to, it's worth mentioning that Rinker was in the same chair in the mid-'80s when WCPX was WFTV-Channel 9's main challenger in local news a role how played by WESH-Channel 2. In fact, Rinker became the scapegoat for the misdeeds and misjudgments of many, including Schweitzer, who is guilty of complicity in moves that hastened WCPX's demise more than anything Rinker did. A publicized dispute in 1987 with his ex-wife, who filed charges of aggravated battery then dropped them, probably cost Rinker, and Channel 6, some viewers. But that was a minor blip in a series of gaffs, brouhahas and blunders that came together over the course of two or three years to strip WCPX of its credibility and much of its dignity. If any one person is to blame it's Glenn Potter, who ran Channel 6 from the time First Media a Maryland-based company, bought the station in 1986 until he was ousted in June.

It was Potter who engineered, and Schweitzer who helped execute, the 1988 firing of popular weather anchor Mike Burger and the hiring of Pamela Kister, a shrewd maneuver that did for WCPX what the replacement of Jane Pauley with Deborah Norville did for the Today show. It was Potter who reportedly tried to hire Fawn Hall, Oliver North's secretary, to anchor the Channel 6 news, and Potter who ordered the cancellation of the station's weekday 5:30 p.m. newscast to make room for reruns of Who's the Boss? During this same full-moon period, Channel 6 lost the services of exceptional anchor-reporter Jill Bazeley, who left to have children, but on the way out gave the station a black eye for refusing to remove a transmitter from WCPX's Brevard bureau that she considered potentially injurious to her unborn baby. As if all that weren't bad enough, there were these two words: Rod Luck. Even Channel 6's own research showed that the bumptious sports anchor, whose style was a noxious blend of maudlin and manic, was a major turnoff for many viewers.

And yet management stuck with their Luck-less albatross long after Burger had been exiled. (Luck finally left Channel 6 in the summer of 1989, when he announced his "retirement" from broadcasting. He is now haranguing viewers at a station in San Diego.) With Potter kicked safely upstairs to First Media's radio division, Schweitzer has pledged to make a fresh start and return Channel 6 news to respectability. He seems to mean it, judging by his announced outlay of money for new equipment and plans for a 5:30 weekday newscast (sometime next year). A new lead male anchor is a logical part of the make-over, and Schweitzer says he has narrowed down his choice to four anchors, all from out of state and all younger than Rinker, who is 57.

"Whoever we hire is going to make a statement on what we're going to be," Schweitzer said. "He'd better be head and shoulders over Glenn Rinker or we're going to take a lot of criticism." Yes, he'd better be good. But Channel 6's recent regrettable history argues strongly that it took more than Glenn Rinker to sink WCPX and will take a lot more than a smiling replacement to raise it' again. gave Rollins a try because 'professors might Marcia Ferrell got trapped in a degree pro- ---1 1 OT yiam uiai iuft.eu ner lu tiuuy uiinys nidi auiudiiy miuw w)uuc a un. ljiiuo iiiincii ai tLfX'C didn't interest her.

It's a mistake she won't top, with painting) knows she'll end up with gram that forced her to study things that TOM BURTONSENTINEL Director says 'Paris' isn't just dance film rv -x The journey to 'off-Hollywood' long and rocky 7 7 v5 By Hillel Italie ASSOCIATED PRESS 'It's a little story about how we all says Livingston of film. ston said. "This is a film that is important for anyone to see, whether they're gay or not. It's about how we're all influenced by the media; how we strive to meet the demands of the media by trying to look like Vogue models or by owning a big car. "And it's about survival.

It's about people who have a lot of prejudices against them and who have learned to survive with wit, dignity and energy. It's a little story about how we all survive." The deeper meanings of the documentary which opened in Orlando Friday have been lost on some people an Atlanta-based media watchdog group, Christian Film and Television Commission, issued an advisory calling for a boycott of the film, which received a $25,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. Livingston, 29, daughter of children's poet Myra Cohn Livingston and accountant Richard Livingston, lived a privileged childhood in Beverly Hills, and then moved to New Haven, to attend Yale. After graduating in the summer of 1985, she moved to New York. She had hopes of becoming a film- Jennie Livingston wants people to look at 'Paris is Burning' with an open mind and an understanding heart.

By Barry Koltnow ORANGE COUNTY (CALIF.) REGISTER Paris 7s Burning, the provocative and critically lauded documentary appears on the surface to be a film about gay black and Latino drag queens and a dance called voguing. But according to its writer and director, Jennie Livingston and a long list of reviewers and moviegoers who have lined up in support of the film since its opening five months ago in New York City the 78-minute documentary is a multileveled exploration of a subculture that proves to be a microcosm of society. "All I had to do was go to a few of these drag balls and talk to some of the people to understand that this was not going to be a movie about a cute dance," NEW YORK Jennie Livingston knew little about directing when she started filming Paris Is Burning. But six years after this onetime photographer spotted kids "voguing" in a Greenwich Village park, her acclaimed documentary of a gay subculture is in theaters nationwide, threatening to become the biggest underground hit since Roger Me. Livingston's feat is neither miraculous nor anomalous both Matty Rich, the 19-year-old director of Straight Out of Brooklyn, and Richard Linklater, the self-taught creator of Slacker, have made waves with low-budget independent features this year.

But Rich, Linklater and Livingston are still the exceptions. There are thousands of armchair directors out there many with film school degrees and only a handful have the luck, talent and persistence to get their stories to the screen. Those who succeed know that between the first thought and the final cut, between final cut and opening night, lie gaps that can last for years. "I spent my entire youth doing this film," joked the 29-year-old Livingston. "It's so difficult.

It's do- maker, she said, but was not willing to commit several more years to studying for another degree. She thought she would take a single course at New York University to see if she liked it. While walking through Washington Square Park near her Greenwich Village apartment one afternoon, she saw several young men doing a dance they called voguing. "It was raining and these guys were dancing and saying things like, 'Witch queen in drag' and 'Saks Fifth Avenue mannequins' and 'Pop, dip and Living- Pease see JENNIE, E-4 Pfease see BUDGET, E-3.