A TV Tabloid Vows to Clean Up Its Act   

"Hard Copy," the syndicated tabloid show known more for its stripper profiles and trailer park murder mysteries than its hard-hitting investigations, has vowed to sober up. Its new executive producers say the days of sleaze, gratuitous violence and crime scene re-creations are over.

Now in its fifth season, "Hard Copy" still fills much of its airtime with celebrities and scandal (during one week, viewers saw a multipart interview with yet another former Michael Jackson employee). But based on a recent spate of shows, the program has broadened its scope.

Among other changes, newly hired Executive Producers Linda Ellman and Linda Bell Blue launched a consumer unit soon after they took over last fall. Reporters depict an injustice and encourage viewers to demand action from Congress. In one case, it was puppies being sold for meat; in another it was a group of pilots' widows whose husbands died in an airplane crash just hours before their supplementary insurance was to kick in.

While "Hard Copy" is still no more likely to delve into the war in Bosnia or health care reform, the program has taken stabs at straight news coverage. Recently it devoted shows to the Los Angeles wildfires ("To Hell and Back") and the California earthquake ("Nightmare in Paradise").

"We don't profess to be high-brow," shrugs Ellman. Adds anchor Terry Murphy: "Network people still try to look at us as if we are doing the evening news. I don't think they have the ability to look at it our way."

¨llman, who left "Entertainment Tonight," and Bell, a "Hard Copy" veteran, lead a crew of mostly women. That, they say, gives "Hard Copy" a sensitivity it was missing.

The producers are hoping that their soul-searching will boost "Hard Copy" in the ratings. The show has gained nearly a million new viewers since January 1993 and now reaches 6.1 million nightly. But it still trails the 6.2 million fans who watch "A Current Affair" and the 6.9 million loyal to "Inside Edition."

Ûroducers at "Inside Edition" and "A Current Affair" were reluctant to discuss "Hard Copy" on the record, but one said privately that he doubted Ellman and Bell alone would be able to change the show that dramatically.

Richard Zoglin, the TV critic at Time, lauds Ellman and Bell for striking a balance between reporting the news and packaging it. He calls "Hard Copy" one of his 10 favorite shows of 1993. "It's easy to be snobbish," he says. "I'm looking at it as TV and it is a good TV show."

ûuring the frenzy over charges that Michael Jackson molested a young fan – whatever you thought of the coverage – "Hard Copy" jumped out of the gates. A source provided confidential California Department of Children's Services documents to reporter Diaæe Dimond – without payment, the producers insist. According to PBS' "Frontline," however, the show later did approve a $100,000 payment for interviews with Jackson's former bodyguards and another $25,000 for access to a former maid.

üuch checkbook journalism didn't dissuade "CBS This Morning" from inviting Dimond, who previously had worked at NPR and CBS, to help viewers sort out the rumors. The "Hard Copy" reporter says other outlets, including ABC (which later hired a "Hard Copy" producer to work on its newsmagazine, "Day One") and Entertainment Weekly, also asked for help or lifted material from her.

That doesn't surprise Kitty Bean Yancey, deputy managing editor of the Life section at USA Today, whose reporters also contacted Dimond. "If they have a show on someone who is involved in a news story," she says, "I don't know that I should ignore them."