Hot Topic: Stars, News Coverage : Television: Radio-TV news directors debate the ethics of reporting sensational stories at their 49th annual convention.

The 49th annual convention of the Radio-Television News Directors Assn. winds up here today after four days of discussions and debates ranging from the latest digital technology to methods for keeping tired viewers awake to see the late news.

Despite all the latest state-of-the-art equipment being demonstrated on the massive exhibit floor at the Los Angeles Convention Center and several panels about politics and technological advances, however, much of the buzz among the about 2,000 attendees centered around the evaporating line of ethics surrounding the coverage of sensational stories and celebrities.

Jose Rios, news director at KTTV-TV Channel 11, said, “Here in Los Angeles especially, with all the recent examples we’ve had, the whole profession is long overdue for some healthy self-examination.”

During one of the livelier panels at the convention, attorney Howard Weitzman, who has represented Michael Jackson, Kim Basinger and O.J. Simpson, and others blasted the news directors for stories filled with rumors and innuendo that they said have damaged the lives and reputations of celebrities.

“I’m one of those who feel that journalists have not only stepped over the line, but you can’t see the forest for the trees,” Weitzman said during a panel discussion Thursday titled “Private Lives of Public People.” “You don’t even know where the line is anymore.”

Weitzman, who represented Simpson before he was charged with the murder of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend Ronald Goldman, called the television news coverage of that case “outrageous.”

“There seems to be this sick obsession with the voyeuristic aspect of celebrities, and people are getting overdosed on it,” said another panelist, Roy Aarons, president of the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Assn.

But panelist John Tomlin, executive producer of the tabloid TV newsmagazines “American Journal” and “Inside Edition,” defended the intense interest of journalists in the comings and goings of celebrities.

“I believe celebrities think they have privileges that most of us don’t have,” said Tomlin. “We should look into their private lives. We have an obligation to see what they’re up to.”

Weitzman also complained that news organizations are too slow to apologize or issue retractions when mistakes are made in their coverage.

The moderator of the session, Emily Rooney, a former ABC News producer who is now working on a new newsmagazine for Fox, blasted KNBC-TV Channel 4 for its apology concerning a recent erroneous story about the Simpson case by reporter Tracie Savage. Several days after her report about tests conducted on socks seized at Simpson’s home was denounced as false by Judge Lance Ito and prosecutors, Savage went on the air and blamed her sources for supplying erroneous information.

“That apology was wimpy and mealy-mouthed,” Rooney said. “I would have been happier if they had said, ‘We made a mistake; we blew it.’ People are ready for that.”

Illustrating her point, Rooney praised KCBS-TV Channel 2 for its explanation and apology for an error on a Simpson-related story about what time prosecutor Marcia Clark had been present for a search of the former football star’s home.

Some news directors at the session also said they were horrified at some of the coverage surrounding celebrities and at the intense focus on the Simpson case. And in the hallways, some expressed concern about the direction of television news.