TV NOTES: BAD HAIR DAYS

A report on "The CBS Morning News" this week finds a disturbing increase in
the use of hair tests to screen job candidates for past drug use --
disturbing because many experts say the tests are unreliable and possibly
racially biased.

The tests can detect drug use over a longer time period than urine tests
(which typically detect back only three days), but they may also register
false positives, even from exposure to drug particles in the environment.
And, as Roberta Baskin shows in the conclusion to her three-part series
Wednesday, different labs came up with widely different results on samples
from identical heads of hair and with different results on hairs of darker
or lighter color but exposed to the same level of drugs.

"It's promising technology when used with other kinds of tests, for
forensic purposes," she said. "But used by itself to decide if someone gets
or doesn't get a job, or custody of a child, for example, it could be very
unfair."

Ms. Baskin's report might strike many viewers as something they would be
more likely to see on the "CBS Evening News," or a prime-time news
magazine. But Al Berman, the executive producer of the "Morning News,"
wants stories like these to distinguish his show from the other breakfast
shows.

"We're fortunate to have an investigative team dedicated to this
broadcast," Berman said. Ms. Baskin has won many investigative-reporting
awards, including two prestigious Alfred I. Dupont-Columbia University
silver batons, one of them for revealing serious flaws in the National
Football League's drug testing procedures.

During the 1998 Winter Olympics, Ms. Baskin got into trouble with Andrew
Heyward, president of CBS News, when, in a letter to him that was leaked to
the press, she protested some CBS reporters' wearing parkas with a Nike
logo and she accused the network of killing a report she had done on Nike.

In unusually angry terms, Heyward denounced Ms. Baskin for her letter,
which she said she had not leaked. Her on-air appearances dwindled; last
July she joined "The CBS Morning News."

Asked if she had wanted to work there, she said, "I like to tell good
stories wherever I can tell them," and would not comment on her
relationship with Heyward or whether it had influenced her move.

She did object to the notion that morning programs only do gentler,
consumer-oriented reporting. "I hate labels," she said. "I'm interested in
stories that affect a lot of people, and I like breaking stories that
people haven't heard about yet."

Berman has offered her series on hair drug-testing to "CBS Evening News"
but has not heard yet whether it will run there as well.