The TV Zone

Here it is -- a very first look at the Ashley Dupre interview with Diane Sawyer to air this Friday.

(Let's say -- the "first look" for those who haven't yet seen the People Mag leak, or teases on ABC's air this morning, or ABCNews.com ... I believe in truth in advertising.)

After a quick scan, here are the newsiest bits I've mined. Then, head on down to the jump for the full story from ABC News.

"Dupre says she initially didn't know the identity of the man referred to in court documents as Client No. 9.

"He looked familiar," she said. "But I was 22 years old, I didn't, I wasn't reading the papers, I was so involved in my life and I was so selfish and caught up in my life and I didn't know who he was. And I was whoever they wanted me to be, and he was whoever he wanted to be."

When asked how often she saw Spitzer, Dupre was reluctant to discuss the details.

"Legally, I am not able to answer that question," she said.

Dupre remembers the moment of shock when she watched Spitzer's televised resignation.

"I didn't know the depth to my situation," she said. "That's when I connected the dots, was when everyone else found out. I turned on the TV and I said, "Oh --, what did I get myself involved in? I felt like everything slowed down around me. And it was just the TV and I and, I was shocked."

Dupre says she was not focused on the governor during the speech, but rather, his wife Silda's face as she stood by his side.

"I felt connected to her," Dupre said. "I didn't feel connected to him. Her pain. And I just saw the pain in her eyes."

-Click to see photos of Ashley Dupre

-Click to see photos of Silda and Eliot Spitzer

-Click for 27 photos of famous sex scandals

Continue reading "Breaking News: Ashley Speaks " »

As reported - pretty much everywhere by now - Ashley "Luv Guv" Dupre will be on "20/20" this Friday, as part of that on-going Diane Sawyer series on prostitution. But for some reason, ABC has withheld the official announcement...until now.

Here it is:

"A Diane Sawyer exclusive: In her first television interview, Ashley Dupre, the woman at the center of the scandal involving former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer, speaks candidly about what life as a high-end escort is like, how an upper middle-class, girl next door got into the profession and the psychological journey she continues to experience. The interview is a continuation of Sawyer’s recent and extensive reporting on prostitution that was the basis for an in-depth look at the profession, which aired in March of 2008."

OK, let's parse this: You'll notice that no where here does it actually imply that this will be an interview about the actual scandal, so one is left to wonder: Is Dupre even asked about Spitzer? A so-called "conditional" interview would be almost unthinkable, but I wonder why ABC doesn't at least say or suggest Spitzer comes up in the interview? Questions, questions...We'll have answers soon. Maybe.

Here's something that almost makes you wonder -- so THIS is what our courts are up to: Christie Brinkley got a restraining order barring her kids from watching tonight's train wreck of an interview between Babs Walters and Peter Cook.

It's all here, in black and white, in New York Magazine's "Daily Intel":

"Christie Brinkley obtained a restraining order in court yesterday to prevent ex-husband Peter Cook from letting their two children, Jack, 13, and Sailor, 10, watch his much-publicized interview with Barbara Walters tonight on "20/20." Brinkley also insists that Cook, who has custody of the kids for the weekend, keep them away from his Sag Harbor home in order to avoid prying media eyes."

Now, my Questions:

1.) Why would they want to break away from "SpongeBob" f or THIS? (No conceivable reason.)

2.) If police are giving out restraining orders barring kids from watching TV, maybe I could pursue a number of restraining orders myself, right?

3.) Let's see - which kids shows should have restraining orders placed on them? (Anything on Cartoon Network -- but that's a whole network. Can you get restraining orders on networks? )

4.) Why would Cook let the kids see this anyway? Isn't it all a terrific embarrassment? Oh wait, I just answered my own question -- his threshold for humiliation was incinerated MONTHs ago. There is no threshold remaining...

5.) How will Christie keep the kids from watching later on the Internet, which is where kids watch a lot of their TV anyway?

I could go on. But I won't. This is just all too sad ...

As you're doubtless aware, the chatter of the network TV news biz beyond ABC the last few days has been the Sarah Palin/Charlie Gibson interview - much of it surfeited with envy, annoyance and a grudging admission that once again (dammit) "we've screwed over by a campaign that's decided Big Media - Us! - is a convenient whipping post." NBC didn't get Palin; CBS didn't get Palin; CNN didn't; and neither did Fox - though Fox couldn't very well argue that it was being punished for some real or imagined transgression by the McCain campaign (right?)

Instead, what we've got here is a very simple situation: An untested, marginally knowledgeable, arguably unsuited vice presidential nominee who hardly needs a battery of interviews that will pry and pry and pry at each of those issues - experience, knowledge, suitability - to find some chink, some deviation from one response to the next, which would then provide the next day's lead story. Too many interviews means too many opportunities for mistakes, and "mistakes" always - always - are the grist for more stories, more controversy. So McCain kept it to just one - Charlie Gibson.

Why Charlie? There's been endless chatter about that, too, though no one seems to accept the most obvious explanation - that he is fair, and that he is prepared, and that he doesn't betray a taste for a victim's blood. Yeah, you could say the same thing about Brian but Katie? 'Nother story altogether. Why NOT chose Williams (whose audience and various venues exceed ABC's?) The obvious answer is MSNBC, along with Chris and Keith Bickerson, now thankfully divorced. McCain is hardly going to reward that network.

But I'm also thinking cosmetic: Brian is a young, good-looking guy; Charlie's her elder, a father-figure as opposed to a brother figure. On-screen, it's the same visual composite as McCain-Palin - the old guy with the young attractive woman. That accentuates Palin's youth and vitality; with Brian, she'd be another youthful face; with Katie, another attractive woman. Visually - which is what campaigns think deeply about - the Charlie/Palin combo worked best.

The interview: As expected, Charlie was respectful, if not kind. He seemed at times the professor, prodding his student for the answer he knew she must know, but really didn't. The Bush doctrine? An unintentionally hilarious moment, when the student suddenly realized the prof tossed her a question she hadn't crammed for. It was almost a Ralph Kramden hum-a-na-hum-an-a-hum-a-na moment, but she smiled, recovered, and guessed at what she thought a "doctrine" might be. Charlie patiently explained what it was, but the cat was out of the bag - she didn't know. The other answers - Russia, Georgia, Iran, Israel? She did just fine, although you got the sense that she practiced hard to pronounce the name "Saakashvili" and this beaut - "nucular weapons... given to those hands of Ahmadinejad" - is a keeper. That line about most veeps never having met heads of state? Charlie blew that one - he should have known, as a longtime Capitol Hill reporter, that that was bogus - of course many, if not most, have. Her preparedness for the presidency? Obvious question and well-asked, and I thought her answer was certainly appropriate, and certainly expected (however, I would have loved if she had parroted Letterman's line the other night, that "George W. Bush had set the bar so low that of course I can!" Hey, humor never hurt a candidate, right?)

There's a lot more of this interview, and believe me, we'll see outtakes over and over and over. But so far, neither candidate nor interviewer have done anything they'll live to regret.

(Pix: Getty Images)

ABC News just released a few additional details on the big Charles Gibson/Sarah Palin debriefing - the only major network interview the McCain campaign's agreed to. The headlline: Outtakes of the interview will be EVERYWHERE on ABC Thursday and Friday.

Says ABC, "The first excerpts will air on Thursday’s 'World News with Charles Gibson' and 'Nightline,' followed by 'Good Morning America,' 'World News,' '20/20' and 'Nightline' on Friday. Additional portions will air across ABC News’ platforms, including ABC News Radio, ABC News NOW, ABCNEWS.com, and ABC NewsOne beginning Thursday."

The interview is, of course, a big deal and not for exclusivity reasons alone; Palin remains a cipher to most and Oprah's refusal to even have her on her show until after the election has even made the entire process a controversial one. Gibson - handed one of the biggest scoops of his career- has already been made out to be a patsy in some corners of the all-knowing-all-seeing blogosphere (Josh Marshall of "TPM" has declaimed that it will be "unwatchable.")

My sense: It'll be fine. Gibson's actually a pretty good interviewer - fair, down the middle, no tricky questions. He can be a softie, too - some of the interviews with Hillary during the campaign were marshmallows, but some were not. In any event, viewers'll know a lot more about the woman from Wasilla by Friday than they do now...

Another thing to keep in mind: This interview will fall on Sept. 11, and I'm sure the coincidence hasn't escaped the notice of the Mc Campaign, which perhaps even orchestrated the timing. Knowing Charlie's in Alaska through the middle of this week for the interview, they had to know that outtakes would air on Nine Eleven. Why important? Because Palin automatically now becomes allied with one of the most important dates in modern history in the eyes and minds of viewers.

I'm just catching up with this tragic news now, so apologies for the late file, but John McWethy, ABC's former Pentagon reporter, was killed in a skiing accident in Colorado.

Here's the top of the AP piece filed late yesterday:

KEYSTONE, Colo. — John McWethy, a retired ABC News correspondent who had to flee the Pentagon after the 2001 attacks but continued reporting live, died Wednesday after a skiing accident. He was 61.

Witnesses said McWethy was skiing fast on an intermediate trail when he missed a turn and slid chest-first into a tree, Summit County Coroner Joanne L. Richardson said. McWethy died of blunt force injuries, she said."

David Westin, ABC News president, also released a statement which read (in part): "He was one of those very rare reporters who knew his beat better than anyone, and had developed more sources than anyone, and yet, kept his objectivity."

My recollections of McWethy: as an extraordinarily solid and meticulous pro, who helped make "World News Tonight" (now just called "World News") probably the best of the three nightly news programs for the better part of a decade. He was closely allied with Peter Jennings' broadcast (naturally) over those many years, so I - and I'm sure you - best remember him from Sept. 11. But there were many, many other instances; he was one of those reporters who would come on screen - another is CBS's David Martin - and instantly capture your attention, because you knew that what you were about to hear was both momentous and absolutely, unerringly accurate. He was just a flat-out first-rate TV correspondent.

For more on McWethy, go to Poynter.org, where Bob Steele has posted a personal tribute.

Also, here's Bob Zelnick - ABC's former Pentagon legman, now a prof at BU, on McWethy:

“I helped recruit Jack from U.S. News in the late 1970s and assigned him to the Pentagon beat. There, along with competitors Fred Francis of NBC and David Martin of CBS, he transformed the beat from a sleepy understaffed outpost to the most competitive center for enterprise reporting in Washington.

“Jack was a gifted journalist. He had great sources and knew issues relating to both theory and hardware. He reported with neither fear nor favor. When he chose to transfer to the State Department as Chief National Security Correspondent, I replaced him at the Pentagon and remained there for eight years until Jack returned.

“He was a valuable and valued colleague whose integrity adorned him like a tailored cloak. He will be missed.”