At Newsmags, Aiming Straight For the Eyes

"Dateline" breaks away from murder now and then. It has aired a Tom Brokaw segment on global warming, a piece on Bill Clinton and Bill and Melinda Gates fighting AIDS, and a Matt Lauer interview with Britney Spears. The program has also devoted considerable time to stings against sexual predators on the Internet, working closely with law enforcement in a controversial collaboration.

Corvo says it may seem like the program does more crime because he has moved away from multiple subjects toward more single-topic hours. "People like you to go deep, not broad," he says.

But by and large, death dominates. Consider these opening lines from "Dateline" co-anchor Stone Phillips in recent weeks:

"A single gunshot and a man is dead, the killer disappearing into the night leaving behind a crying widow and a mystery."

"A savage murder in a wild landscape. The victim, a woman loved in her community, found dead deep in the woods of Alaska."

"It's a case with all the intrigue of 'The Da Vinci Code': A gruesome death at a famous landmark, links to a secret society, and a scandal surrounding the Vatican."

When "Dateline" runs out of current cases, it exhumes those from the past, such as a segment on four children looking into the circumstances surrounding their mother's death in 1973.

Both Corvo and Zirinsky say they have jumped on breaking news when necessary, as they did with Hurricane Katrina. Apparently, the war in the Middle East doesn't qualify.

But while the programs may seem increasingly one-dimensional, the bottom line is still getting people in the tent.

"We are a commercial network," Zirinsky says. "If nobody watches, I can be self-righteous right off the air."

Call It Koppelcam

Ted Koppel, who once bragged about his refusal to use e-mail, will soon be getting a webcam in his home.

To help publicize his new role creating documentaries and hosting town meetings for the Discovery Channel, Koppel will answer e-mail questions with video responses on the network's Web site.