Station Break

Friedman, an NBC Nightly News executive, and Ford, a PR specialist, make network news look like tabloid TV in this glitzy, cartoonish first novel. Do-or-die San Francisco reporter Mary Reed, 25, grabs national attention when she scores an exclusive televised interview with Jerry Radamacker, the lunatic leader of a well-armed white supremacist organization. Radamacker subsequently entertains fond thoughts of the savvy blond journalist as he and his despicable henchmen, who spout racial epithets and prayers in the same breath, plot a Nazi uprising. Meanwhile, Reed signs with a bigtime agent and leaves the Bay Area for Los Angeles, where she wins four Emmys in her first year and never realizes the threat Radamacker still poses. Friedman and Ford display their media expertise in detailed, realistic newsroom sequences, but their narrative, like hastily edited footage, is often choppy. The unkindest cut of all occurs when Mary forsakes her career to pursue a love affair, effectively denying readers a strong--or, indeed, any--female heroine. Despite all this, the authors are on the right track: their transparent melodrama will make a perfect movie-of-the-week. (Mar.)