A Walk on the Seamy Side

By Richard Zoglin

Did you hear about the New Jersey garage owner known to his friends as the "jovial giant"? Seems he was shot to death in his driveway, allegedly by a former Scout leader who was having an affair with his wife. How about the middle-aged beautician in Florida who used to hang out at a bar called Madge's? Gave a ride to a drifter one night and wound up with her throat slashed and her body dumped by the railroad tracks. Then there's the Garden Grove, Calif., teenager convicted of shooting her stepmother to death. Now she claims she was coaxed into making a false confession by her father, who, she says, committed the crime in cahoots with her stepmother's sister. Whooo boy.

TV's police blotter is filled to capacity these days, and not just on Murder, She Wrote and Miami Vice. A fresh burst of nonfiction programming -- news shows, pseudo news shows and other "reality" fare -- has rediscovered those old reliables of tabloid journalism, sex and violent crime. America's Most Wanted, the highest-rated show on the Fox network, and Unsolved Mysteries, which joined NBC's schedule this month, solicit viewer help each week in tracking down fugitives. The syndicated magazine show A Current Affair, drawing good ratings on 125 stations, goes for the gut each night with stories on crime and celebrity scandal. Typical subjects on Fox's The Reporters, a tabloid version of 60 Minutes, range from a grandmother who tracked down the alleged killer of her daughter to racist youths known as skinheads, in a report titled "Shaved and Dangerous."

You know sensationalism is back in style when Geraldo Rivera, network TV's original advocacy reporter, is riding high. After getting dumped from ABC's 20/20 in 1985, Rivera started an improbable comeback by opening Al Capone's long-sealed vault on live TV. The cupboard was bare, but ratings were huge, and Rivera followed up with melodramatic specials on such topics as drugs and death row, as well as with a daytime talk show. This week he returns to network TV with a two-hour special on NBC, Devil Worship: Exposing Satan's Underground. The sometimes graphic show dwells on criminals purportedly influenced by satanic beliefs, among them a 14-year-old boy who slashed his mother's throat and then committed suicide, and Robert Berdella, a Kansas City man under investigation for multiple tortures and murders.

There's more, lots more. A string of ABC specials in coming weeks will focus on people who have committed mayhem against those they love (Crimes of Passion), efforts by law enforcement officials to catch parole violators (Trackdown) and "infamous events that have shocked a nation" (Scandals). The Secret Identity of Jack the Ripper, a syndicated special airing this week, presents new clues on the Victorian bad guy, while Who Murdered J.F.K.? claims to offer new evidence of an assassination conspiracy. In the meantime, Morton Downey Jr. shouts down guests nightly on his talk show; a parade of lesbian mothers, sex surrogates and rape victims tell their teary stories to Oprah and Phil; and several new series are in the works, including a Current Affair clone called Inside Edition and a new offering from Rivera dubbed The Investigators.

Though sudden, the explosion of tabloid shows should not be surprising. There is no reason why TV should not have its own version of the New York Daily News or even the National Enquirer, alongside World News Tonight and The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour. "I see myself as an alternative vision," says Rivera, "not one dictated by the suits on Sixth Avenue ((Manhattan's network row))." Although his antics often seem self-aggrandizing and overwrought, Geraldo finds the TV universe is big enough for him too.

Still, once sex and violence start drawing ratings, the slope can be slippery. NBC is the only network not to have a weekly hour of news programming in prime time; yet it had no trouble finding two hours for Geraldo's devil special (being produced under the auspices of the entertainment division, not news). TV's new fascination with real-life crime, moreover, has the whiff of pandering. The correspondents on 60 Minutes have been called prosecutorial, but they at least come armed with sheaves of evidence. The hot-button journalists of The Reporters and other tabloid shows pursue their prey with little more than inflammatory narration and lurid "re- creations" of the crime. The appeal is to knee-jerk emotions, fears and fantasies of revenge.

A few strands of human complexity can be found on this seamy beat. The new syndicated show On Trial, featuring footage from actual court cases, has drawn criticism for turning courtroom proceedings into entertainment. Yet the trial excerpts are gripping and ambiguous as only real life can be. And a syndicated special airing on local stations this month, Crimes of Violence, probes disturbingly into the psychology of several confessed criminals. The shock is how calmly detached from their acts many of these "brutal" offenders are. One soft-spoken rapist, pressed to show remorse for his crimes, responds at last: "I'm not gonna cry on national TV." Thanks -- we needed that.

With reporting by Mary Cronin/New York and Elaine Dutka/Los Angeles