DATE: Thursday, November 13, 1997           TAG: 9711130078

SECTION: DAILY BREAK             PAGE: E2   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: LARRY BONKO

                                            LENGTH:   90 lines

WAVY HITS HIGHS, LOWS IN RATINGS GRAB

(It's that time again - the November sweeps - when local TV stations chase high ratings by breaking out the hidden cameras and loading up newscasts with special reports. Today, we'll check out WAVY. In the next two weeks, we'll look at the other stations.)

HERE'S A shocker: WAVY's Little Miss Sunshine, weekend anchor-reporter and recent bride, Shelley Harrell, has been caught trying to outsmart a lie detector.

``Have you ever lied about your age, Shelley?''

``No.''

``Oh, yes you have,'' says Mr. Lie Detector Man.

``Well, maybe when I was younger and tried to . . . ''

'Fess up, Shelley.

``I guess you can just call me a liar.''

Harrell, whose bio says she's 29, confessed to fibbing after a segment on how lie detectors work, and why the results of lie-detector tests are rarely admissible in Virginia courts. She volunteered to hook herself up to the machine.

That had sweeps' stunt written all over it.

As the sweeps roll on, WAVY's ``Channel 10 On Your Side'' reporters produce work that is both silly and serious. Silly: Hampton Roads' high schoolers wondering what's happened to the traditional family dinner. Serious: Somebody here is pirating computer software.

Some of the sweeps stuff makes me cringe. Some of it I salute.

At Channel 10, they've chased down a scam artist peddling quickie divorces, gone after a repair shop that ripped off a car owner for $3,000, and done a story on aging that WAVY called ``What To Do With Mom and Dad.''

That was an unfortunate choice of words.

You ``do'' things with kitchen trash, worn tires and grass clippings. You don't ``do'' things with people. In her report on Sentara's Senior Community Care Center, Christy Carlo observed that for the elderly who use the center, ``it's almost like day care.''

That scored high on the Cringe-o-Meter. Is this young reporter equating the elderly with helpless children?

And in telling the story of an Alzheimer's patient, did WAVY really have to inform viewers that the man who attacked the elderly woman in her home ``couldn't penetrate'' the victim?

And might not the story on small claims court have been done without the case of the rug with the mysterious dog-urine stains?

I've seen WAVY's bulldog Andy Fox show more sensitivity in dealing with the question of what to do with a speed bump at Hilltop.

Think before you speak, WAVY.

Harrell also checked in with ``The Mysteries of Edgar Cayce,'' one of those ``special reports'' you see so much of in November. She promised to give us some eye-opening predictions for 1998 by the famous sleeping prophet of Virginia Beach, but I didn't hear any prophecies except for some vague reference to Georgia falling into the sea.

Is that all of Georgia, Shelley? Or just greater Savannah?

And what's with Alveta Ewell, WAVY's 6 p.m. co-anchor? In bringing on Harrell's piece, she referred to Cayce as ``downright spooky,'' and later suggested most people ``are spooked'' by Cayce's predictions.

Most people? Cayce and his Association for Research and Enlightenment have a huge following in Hampton Roads and around the world.

There was nothing frightful about Harrell's focus on Cayce's knack of diagnosing serious illnesses while in a trance - a story that has been done to death in this market - unless it was Harrell's reporting.

Will eating three almonds a day really fend off cancer, as Cayce suggested, according to Harrell? What do doctors say about that, Shelley? And, it's the Association for Research and Enlightenment, Shelley, not the Association of Research and Enlightenment.

WAVY, striving to retain its No. 1 rating at 6 p.m., sent its ace, take-no-prisoners investigative reporter, Tom Cobin, prowling health food stores with a camera hidden up his sleeve. He sought out clerks who dare sell diet supplements that contain ephedrine alkaloids, which according to WAVY may carry risk of illness, even death.

``Diet Pill Danger! Are sales people pushing pills that can kill?''

If you can read, it's no danger. Cobin says most of the supplements come with warning labels.

Even after Cobin's report, I'm still fuzzy about how and why herbs such as ma huang do the body harm if, indeed, they are a bad thing in large doses.

But I am clear about what goes on in small claims court, thanks to Steven Lattimore's ``take it to court'' sweeps segment. Lattimore showed how your city's small claims court is far different from the one you see on ``People's Court,'' but it was too bad the case he picked involved dog urine.

Lattimore should have waited around for a claim that wouldn't offend viewers at the dinner hour.

Tips from Lattimore: Your case isn't likely to be solved in five minutes, don't interrupt the judge, and have your paperwork in order. I like Lattimore's work. He's a pro. His colleagues should be so good. MEMO: Next week, your humble columnist puts WTKR's local sweeps

programming under a microscope.

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