The Newy Factor

But panic the suits will. Because they don't just look at the fact that Scruggs and Hansen pull similar ratings on expanded Sunday-night sports shows--last month, Hansen had a 7.0 rating, or 154,000 homes viewing, as opposed to Scruggs' 6.7, or 147,400 homes. (For reference, Hansen's show used to pull 20 ratings a decade ago, 10s and 11s five years ago.) They look at how, combined, all the anchors are down from November last year (Hansen had a 7.3, Scruggs a 7.0), continuing a trend that won't change anytime soon: Viewers are abandoning network news, local and national.

"I don't like it, but I understand what's happening," Hansen says. "We're becoming radio. We're all trying to carve out our own little niche. And I don't always like what Newy or Babe [Laufenberg, Channel 11 sports anchor] do. I look at it and think, 'That's not very good,' by what I was taught was the way to do a sportscast. But I also understand that they're just being themselves, going after the audience that likes what they offer. And that's all we're all doing now.

"At least, for the first time, everyone isn't imitating me," he says, laughing but quite serious. "Newy is young and hip. Babe is the former jock. I'm arrogant and opinionated. Choose what you like and let's go."

--A letter to Scruggs on his Web site, www.newdawg.com

It takes awhile to convince Scruggs it's OK to analyze Newy Scruggs. For the first half-hour of our interview, he responds with varying themes of "no comment."

Is it tough being a black anchor in a business dominated by white guys?

"I don't think about that. I just do my job," he says, smiling.

What about taking on Hansen?

"The pie is big enough for everybody," he says. "I just do my thing."

Is it fair that some people in the sports media here have said to me--off the record, of course--that any warm pulse would do better than Scott Murray, the person you replaced?

"Always gonna be people who criticize you. I won't play that game."

It's not just goading someone for a good quote. The question "Why are you doing a story about Newy?" came from every sports fan I talked to the past two months. And when you point out that no one has really challenged Hansen the past 20 years, and that in itself bears exploring, the response was a cocked eyebrow, a smirk or, as one reporter flat-out said to me, "But isn't that just because he's black?"

As racist as this sounds, there are even people at Channel 5 who will tell you that because of the way the latest group of Arbitron households were selected--one person who says he saw the map suggested there was a disproportionate number of households in Southern Dallas and that this has affected recent ratings books--the point has some unintended merit.

The problem, of course, is that's not what the questions and conspiratorial looks really mean. They're a way of saying, "If all the minorities watch him, doesn't he have a built-in advantage?"

Which is always funny, because if you were to suggest that white people watch newscasters because of their color, you'd be laughed at. But black and brown people, apparently, are incapable of changing the channel when they see a man of color.

To Scruggs' defense on this comes...Dale Hansen.

"I keep hearing that, and it's one of the most offensive things anyone can say about Newy or John McCaa or Joe Trahan [both of Channel 8]. For some reason, still today, when a black man is hired for a job, he always has the burden of proving he deserves it."

As Hansen points out, that view is especially prevalent in the TV biz, because often people are hired for superficial reasons. Everyone interviewed for this story points out that they know someone hired because she was a pretty face, or because he was a genial older father figure, or a redhead or looks good in red or whatever subjective reason a station manager finds. ("Are you going to tell me," says one on-air reporter, "that [Channel 11's] Karen Borta's looks had nothing to do with her hiring? Everything about you matters somewhat.")

So even though he won't discuss it in depth, Scruggs knows he's a bit of a lightning rod. When the black guy from the Dallas Mavericks sales staff told him that he's lasted longer than other black sportscasters in Dallas, he reminded him that Max Morgan, Chris Arnold, Curt Menefee and others did or are doing just fine before him.

"You just can't get caught up in that stuff, trying to figure out people's motives, why you're hired, if people see past your skin color," he says. "You end up chasing your tail. You'd go crazy. "