It was the kind of story -- a prostitute and a priest -- that no local station could resist. But KMOV-TV in St. Louis proved a bit too eager to make the story happen.

KMOV came under criminal investigation this week after acknowledging that it paid expenses for a male prostitute and set him up in a hotel room with a Catholic priest during a hidden-camera investigation.

The CBS affiliate paid for the prostitute's air fare, rental car, hotel room, room service meal and in-room movie, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. The station decided not to air the story, but the local prosecutor has begun a grand jury probe into whether prostitution laws were violated.

Francis Brady, president of Viacom Television Group, which owns KMOV, made an on-air apology Thursday. "Thousands of priests, nuns and lay volunteers have been unfairly burdened by this story... . We deeply regret {it}, and I apologize for the errors in judgment," he said.

Bishop Edward O'Donnell, who runs the Archdiocese of St. Louis, told the station in a letter that he was shocked at the "reprehensible attempt" to "sully the image of the Catholic Church and its priests."

Circuit Attorney Dee Joyce-Hayes said yesterday she would determine whether KMOV executives and reporters had violated "the statute prohibiting promotion of prostitution, referred to at the street level as pimping."

But General Manager Allan Cohen said KMOV was not staging a tryst. "The meeting was prearranged by the prostitute and the priest without the station's involvement," he said. "The intention was not to sting this particular priest. It was to get an interview and find out whether there was a larger group of priests involved. The prostitute was told that under no circumstances was there to be sex of any kind."

The story began in March, when reporters Jeff Rainford and Jim Bolen made contact with a 29-year-old prostitute who said he knew of sexual activity by priests. The station filmed the prostitute as he called a priest and confirmed a sex-for-cash agreement.

The priest joined the prostitute in the hotel room, where KMOV had a hidden camera, and paid him $200. The reporters then made a prearranged call to the room to interrupt the transaction. It is not known whether the two men later had sex.

"I think it's appalling," Joyce-Hayes said. "I don't expect the media to create incidents that create news. This is pretty seamy stuff."

Propaganda Ploy Newsweek officials were overjoyed a few weeks back when a front-page Wall Street Journal piece painted a less-than-flattering picture of arch-rival Time magazine. "The magazine continues to grope for its mission... . Time's journalistic reputation has taken a shellacking," it said.

Newsweek paid the Journal for 2,000 reprints, promising in writing that they were for internal use only. But Newsweek sent copies to journalists around the country, with a boasting cover letter from Publisher Peter Eldredge.

This week Newsweek gave its salespeople a sheet full of excerpts for distribution to advertisers. Newsweek added such tart headlines as "Time's on a roll ... downhill" and "Newsweek blows Time away." And the kicker: "Even the Wall Street Journal seems to agree that ... It's time for Newsweek."

A Journal lawyer yesterday wrote Newsweek "registering our very strong objection" to the "misuse of our copyrighted material" and seeking an apology, Journal spokesman Roger May said. "We don't allow our trademarks, including the Wall Street Journal, to be used by other people for their advertising or promotion."

Newsweek spokesman Diana Pearson said the magazine "will be issuing an apology to the Journal about this misunderstanding" and will stop distributing the article. Time spokesman Robert Pondiscio accused its competitor of "a bush-league stunt."

Selective Editing A Los Angeles Times story this week noted that President Clinton and his wife have been courting the press by dining with such luminaries as Katharine Graham, Jack Germond, Jules Witcover and Albert Hunt. When the item reached Los Angeles, however, the name of Washington bureau chief Jack Nelson had been mysteriously deleted.

"I took it out because I thought it looked a bit like self-promotion on the paper's part," said National Editor Norman Miller. "We're modest fellows. I think we ought to stay out of our own stories."

Blase in Beantown Matthew Storin, editor of the Boston Globe, insists that the New York Times Co.'s billion-dollar purchase of his newspaper will have no effect on the paper's editorial direction.

"I really don't think there's going to be a bit of change," Storin said, while conceding that the Times' pledge of local autonomy lasts only five years. "A year from now, most people in this building will have forgotten we're owned by the New York Times. It's more incentive for us to beat them on stories."

In his own paper, Storin hailed the Times as "the greatest newspaper organization in the world." He said the Globe had run sketchy reports on the Times negotiations but was in the "dicey situation" of not being able to print what the editors knew.

The Times ran no story on the merger talks until yesterday, except for mentioning a Time magazine report in the last paragraph of a stock market article on Page D8.

Pointed Headline "Haft Removes Wife, Son From Dart Board" -- first edition of Tuesday's Washington Post