Four Syllables, Starts With M, Ends With Uh-Oh

Arkin calls the program's conduct "despicable." Watters was "stalking" him over the course of a 90-minute car ride, Arkin says, and peppered him with questions while his children were nearby.

David Tabacoff, O'Reilly's executive producer, dismisses the notion of stalking, saying Arkin had turned down a telephone request for an interview and that Fox obscured his children's faces. Watters did not know the car chase would last that long, Tabacoff says, but "we were trying to be more polite than banging on his door or creating a ruckus at his house."

Getting the Spirit

As Katie Couric approaches the six-month mark as a network anchor, she is still tinkering with "CBS Evening News." Last week, after promoting the newscast during CBS's Super Bowl coverage, she launched a series grandly titled "The American Spirit" -- and now it's turning into a weekly feature.

The focus is familiar for network television -- people who are successfully tackling problems -- but with an angle. "I've always wanted to do something solution-oriented," Couric says. "We're not trying to say, 'Here's Joe or Jane Smith feeding the homeless in their community.' These are local solutions that have potential national implications."

Couric reported the first three pieces herself. The first involved a Kalamazoo, Mich., program, funded by anonymous donors, that guarantees a free college education to every Kalamazoo public school student who maintains at least a C average. The others focused on a doctor crusading for safer hospitals and an investor raising money to provide more math teachers for New York City schools.

While it's doubtful that free college tuition could work everywhere, executive producer Rome Hartman disputes the notion that this is feel-good television. "This isn't Pollyanna, this is prescriptions," he says.

Couric hopes to motivate some people to get "off their duffs." Besides, she says, "it's just a nice break from some of the dreadful news we have to report every night."

Close to Home

Brian Williams's 89-year-old father makes his television debut tonight.

The "NBC Nightly News" anchor will kick off a personalized series on caring for children and aging parents with a piece about Gordon Williams, who is recovering from hip-replacement surgery in an assisted-living facility. Ordinarily, says Williams, "I avoid first-person reporting religiously. I will go to great lengths to avoid the word 'I' in my broadcast." But, he says, "so many of us are dealing with the topic. I think it's going to touch a nerve."

Tim Russert and Ann Curry will also file reports on their fathers. And since NBC stars aren't exactly hurting for money, Tom Brokaw will profile a typical family struggling with youngsters and oldsters.