Ron Fineman's ON THE RECORD

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KCAL/KCBS has announced that Miami weather anchor Jackie Johnson will be coming to replace Byron Miranda on KCAL in the coming months. I am told that Miranda will continue with weather at KCBS.

According to a reliable inside source, KCBS/KCAL General Manager Don Corsini has decided to replace weather anchor Byron Miranda in the coming months. This of course would be consistent with the rumor of Miami weather anchor Jackie Johnson coming to KCBS. And it might well explain why neither Johnson nor her news director have returned my calls. If she were staying put, it would be pretty easy to say so, just as Lisa Joyner did last week. But of course lack of comment is not proof positive of anything.

A second inside source tells me that management has been considering replacing Miranda on KCAL, but not KCBS. That doesn't particularly make sense to me, but again, this was stated to me as merely a possibility.

Another person in the biz, not connected with KCBS/KCAL says they are hearing that Johnson is coming to KCBS to replace Miranda, but that some health problems on her end have delayed any announcement. This person also says that KCBS is being a little cheap with what they offering, considering the position. And I'm told that Johnson is considered a 'superstar' in Miami.

Miranda came here in August 2002. So while he may've signed the usual three year contract, it would certainly be possible that a two-year window would be coming up, giving KCBS the right to cut him loose. I have emailed both Byron Miranda and GM Don Corsini, but have had no response.

As I watched coverage on Saturday, and some on Sunday - there were two patterns which I had feared might come to pass when President Reagan died. One - not enough substantive discussion of his time as president and governor, and two - not enough balance, too much commentary with rose colored glasses.

Of course I understand the normal tendency to only be kind when someone has died. Yet, I think when we are talking about a former president, we should expect more from TV news. If you read the newspaper, you'd get a much better balanced look at his career. And as always, I remind you that I couldn't possibly watch everyone all the time so I may've missed something that could contradict my impressions.

And I should add, that while I never voted for him, as I look back now...I can see that he deserves tremendous credit for helping to bring the end of the Soviet Union, and also for helping the economy by lowering income tax rates.

To no one's surprise, it was pretty tough to find anything critical about Reagan on The Fox News Channel. I never heard Iran/Contra even mentioned on Saturday. Finally, I did see Chris Wallace bring it up on Fox News Sunday. James Baker said Reagan didn't think he was trading arms for hostages, but later admitted that he had done that. How could he not know, or why would he deny it and then admit it? Wallace had no follow up to explore that. Likewise, Iran/Contra came up on Meet The Press. Andrea Mitchell had what I thought was a rather weak explanation about it, but Tim Russert, coming up on a break, didn't pursue it.

And back on FNC, when reporter Jim Angle stated a commonly held belief about President Reagan, he was corrected by former Reagan National Security Advisor Richard Allen. Angle said how Reagan was criticized for not knowing details of policy, which was true to some extent. But Allen said no president was better informed on details than Ronald Reagan. Allen is the only person I saw this weekend to try to make that case. Reagan being a big idea man, but not a detail man, was certainly the consensus.

Fred Barnes was among those who went along with that perception. For a rare critical comment about Reagan on FNC, he mentioned that in the first Reagan/Mondale debate, he asked Reagan why he didn't go to church, or bring in a preacher to The White House. Reagan said he didn't go out to church because he didn't want to create a security problem, an answer which Barnes said disappointed him. Barnes' recount didn't include any answer to the other part of his question.

Reagan's death brought in Bill O'Reilly for a Sunday show. O'Reilly asked Alexander Haig about the Marines who were murdered while trying keep peace in Lebanon. O'Reilly said Reagan said it was his worst decision. Haig defended that decision, explaining that sending in the Marines was his plan. That was only discussion I heard about it, which was one of the events that made Arab terrorists believe Americans would cut and run if you bloody them; since Reagan pulled us out after the deaths. But O'Reilly didn't address that aspect of it.

Regarding Iran/Contra, Edwin Meese told O'Reilly that was no basis to challenge President Reagan's credibility. O'Reilly never challenged that. Even in death, it does seem that he remains the Teflon president.

Neil Kavuto of Fox News talked some about the Reagan tax cut, and compared it to Bush's. That was the sort of thing I'd like to have seen more of.

On FNC, Jerry Falwell spoke about how Reagan fought against abortion. Yet there was no mention that Governor Reagan signed a liberalized abortion law in California. In fact I don't recall hearing anyone on television mention that (though you can read about it today's LA Times).

While I did see some coverage of his days as governor, there wasn't nearly enough. Of course maybe Fox News might not want to tell the country that Reagan raised taxes soon after he became governor. But someone should've talked about it. Chris Wallace interviewed Governor Reagan's chief of staff, but there was nothing in there about specific issues. That article in the Times today lists a number of accomplishments while governor, which could be considered liberal.

And of course Reagan's presidential accomplishments and presence were large. "Mr Gorbachev tear down this wall," must be remembered, but I wanted more in depth discussion on those achievements. George Shultz was asked about the turning point in the cold war. He said that Reagan said it was Reykjavik, because it was the first time the two leaders talked for an extended time. Shultz thought the key was keeping NATO together and putting Pershing II missile in West Germany. That told Gorbachev that he had to negotiate. Now that was some substance; more than a headline. We needed much more of that.

I might add, which will not surprise you, that now that we are into Day 3 of coverage, I think it is too much. I mean no disrespect to the Reagan legacy, and obviously the coverage of his funeral is still to come, but I think it's time to spend more time on other news.

As Nancy Reagan and family went to the Santa Monica funeral home, KTTV was covering it. I couldn't help but notice how much better prepared Tony McEwing was compared to Jean Martirez. At first it appeared like she though Reagan was the first former president to die since Johnson. Actually Johnson was the last to get a state funeral. Then Martirez suggested that President Nixon didn't get a state funeral because he resigned. Well, the explanation I heard was that the Nixon family didn't ask for one, which is a pre-requisite to getting one. Granted, that may be the reason they didn't ask, but I think those are the kind of facts that an anchor should be aware of if they're going to talk about it.

Further, McEwing talked about Reagan detractors who believed that he wasn't very well read. Martirez then said how Reagan was able to accomplish a lot by being nice. But then McEwing continued his line of thought, saying that in fact Reagan certainly was well read. I think Martirez needed to be better read on Reagan.

It was Saturday when President Reagan died. This is when statements about him were coming in. While you'd think that the death of Reagan would be the focus, Fox's Rita Cosby used the occasion to pat herself on the back. Before telling us Tricia Nixon Cox's reaction to the death, she had to tell the audience that Tricia wanted to make sure that Cosby got it before the rest of the press. Was that really something we needed to know?

I can tell you, having worked with Rita when she started as a reporter in Bakersfield, she did have that need to build herself up. Before coming to Bakersfield, she had been an intern for CBS in New York, working with Dan Rather. I remember when a fellow reporter told me about first meeting Rita, saying that Rita was talking about Dan Rather barely after saying hello.

While I found her to be nice, she was not particularly well liked or respected in the newsroom.

Recently I pointed out how a story on KCAL managed to show just good looking women getting gasoline. Consider the following Memorial Day story done by KTLA's Frank Mottek.

There you see a picture of some people in line at the airport, which seems to be a cross section of folks. But check out his two interviewees from LAX.....

I know that's not the most flattering freeze frame of the blonde, but believe me, neither looked too shabby.

KABC reporter Micah Ohlman was trying to get a macaw to say "Hello LA." After trying twice, Ohlman gave up, saying "some things are left better unsaid."

KCOP seems to pride itself in making jokes in certain parts of their newscast. If you keep an eye on the ratings here, you know that strategy isn't helping. In any case, I thought they crossed a line recently, when Maria Quiban read a story about a man who killed himself after his wife caught him having sex with a hen. Quiban concluded the story by saying that the hen was in counseling.

You can see why this was in their "News Weird" segment. But come on! A man took his own life. Do you suppose his wife might actually need some counseling? It wasn't a local story, but nevertheless, showed a lack of class that is not unusual for KCOP.

KNBC reporter Ted Chen said that young Asians seem "disinterested" in voting. Disinterested means unbiased. He should have said "uninterested." Though the word has been misused so often (like those who think "enormity" is about size) that my dictionary lists "uninterested" as a meaning for "disinterested," informally.