The hole they have climbed into is deep, and dark:Jessica Simpson's tummy aches, next on Headline News

By Paul Brownfield, Times Staff Writer

While "The Daily Show With Jon Stewart" continues to ascend to a spooky legitimacy, feeding off the same absurdities that news anchors report with a straight face, entertainment news remains stubbornly unlampooned. Why doesn't Comedy Central, for instance, do an "Access Hollywood" spoof as a companion to Stewart? You could call it "Showbiz Tonight," and you could give the host a name like A.J. Hammer, and Hammer could kick it out to Sibila Vargas for pre-Oscar coverage, saying, "It's all coming together, Sibila, isn't it?" And Sibila would say, "Everything is coming together for Hollywood's big night, A.J. Here's what's happening in Hollywood."

At this point I feel obliged to inform you that this show is already on, although very few people are tuning in so far, judging by its bargain-basement cable ratings during initial airings. Still, "Showbiz Tonight" is part of a rollout of prime-time programming, dubbed "Headline Prime," begun last week on CNN's sister network, CNN Headline News. You know Headline News, it's where you go to get nuance on the Islamist platform of the United Iraqi Alliance while you're on the treadmill at the gym. Now the network has scheduled "Showbiz Tonight" at 4 and then again at 7, a beguiling hour of entertainment industry nonsense, followed by "Nancy Grace," which is pitched as a tough-talking legal affairs program, but is closer in spirit to "America's Most Wanted," not to mention Maury Povich, Sally Jesse Raphael and Jerry Springer. Grace, a former criminal prosecutor, alternates between fulminating rage and tears (and sometimes fulminating tearful rage) at the day's most sensational criminal cases.

Then follows a spruced-up, hourlong version of Headline News' bread and butter, called "Prime News Tonight." Co-hosted by Mike Galanos and Erica Hill, who are trying for a news-magazine feel, the show spends four minutes on the bird flu story instead of one. It means to be more serious, to slow down Headline News' usual Orwellian loop of national and global misery and fear, and it does this job in a serviceable way. But the rubric is still the world as infotainment: Should we be scared of this bird flu? And what's this latest identity theft scam? Now here's our tech guy to tell you about some new gadgets.

Headline News isn't CBS, or even CNN, but in the landscape of broadcast news, this new trio of programs neatly represents the slow but steady march away from perspective, balance and a genuine interest in the world outside of what might immediately affect you and your lifestyle, or what might stimulate for you some primal feeling of outrage or pity or disgust.

With their latest move, CNN has simply confirmed what many of us have known for sometime: they do not work to cover the news and inform, but only to agitate, inflame, and generally subjectivize all news "reporting." Even more sadly, they do not even engage in true agitation, as there is no purpose or ulterior motive behind their agitation (except that subjectivizing the news benefits conservatives greatly). Instead, it is a pastiche of agitation, where you are agitated simply for the purpose of being agitated. I am not a fan of Faux News in any way, but it does not sadden me to witness CNN falling down a deep, dark ratings hole from which they will never recover. If this is what they plan to air, good riddance.

The Daily Show deserves every last bit of legitimacy that it receives. A station like CNN will tell you the news, and then invite two talking heads from "either side" to come on and offer you a rhetorical spin that guarantees you will not remember what the original story was about (I even barely remember what I was talking about on MSNBC, but I do remember that I enjoyed annoying Monica Crowley). By contrast, the Daily Show tells you the news, and then makes fun of it. Obviously, this breeds cynicism, but it also breeds knowledge, as the actual news is repeated, rather than mutated by spin, during the joke phase. It works too, as Daily Show viewer are far more aware of current events than regular viewers of any "legitimate" news station or program. Its not even close, just like the rating gap between the Daily Show and any other cable news program.

One more thing. Because the Daily Show is foregrounded as "illegitimate" news, it is immune to the long-standing right-wing attacks for "balance," which in reality mean total domination of news coverage. You will never see the Heritage foundation on the Daily Show, and that alone guarantees it is the best source of news on television.