A reporter's best friend.

• Author: Saltzman, Joe

It started out as a reasonable idea. Print reporters who covered complicated stories ended up knowing more about the story than almost anyone else, so why not interview them on TV to get the inside information as to what was happening - and why?

At first, these reporters were mostly involved in stories concerning tough legal, medical, or economic issues. Their expertise made it easier for them to discuss the nuances and subtleties of a difficult issue involving economics, the law, or medicine.

All well and good. But in recent years, television news and infotainment programs have been using reporters from the print media to do their work. Instead of hiring high-priced talent to ferret out information, these programs rely instead on the expertise and knowledge of other reporters working for other media.

At first glance, it seems like a match made in heaven. A TV host interviews a reporter from the Los Angeles Times or the Associated Press or Variety or Vanity Fair or some other well-known magazine or newspaper and the answers give the audience the who, what, where, when, how, and especially why of the story.

These print reporters are usually articulate and intelligent, often surprisingly at ease in front of the camera, especially when being guided by a more experienced TV personality, anchor, or reporter. But too often, they are substituting for the people involved in the story. Instead of interviewing the principals in the news or feature story, instead of digging out the details of the story itself, the TV program simply puts the print reporter on the air, asks a few questions, and moves on to another story.

During the O.J. Simpson trial, for example, when most of the principals would not talk to someone from TV, every reporter allowed in court spent most of the time out of court speaking to TV reporters and talk-show hosts. They offered minute observations of the jurors, the victims' families, and the O.J. defense team. They offered instant analyses of what happened that day in court and what might happen tomorrow, what was important and what wasn't, and why various participants in the trial did what they did and perhaps should have done something else. Some of these reporters, when pulled out of the courtroom and thrown in front of the cameras, expressed deep emotional concerns, such as shock, at something that happened in court or anger that the trial was going on so long.

Many of these reporters, most of them covering the story for...