THE BELL CURVE:

The Newport Beach Public Library Foundation scored again last weekend by bringing Lowell Bergman down from his chair as distinguished professor of investigative journalism at UC Berkeley to tell us how our print and broadcasting media have gotten into the mess they now inhabit — and what to expect in their efforts to get out.

Bergman has probably been in your life for many years in various guises — as the director of investigative reporting at ABC News and original producer of “20/20” for that network. By the 14 years he spent as a producer of “60 Minutes” — the most popular news show on the air. By the story of his investigation of the tobacco industry that was turned into a movie called “The Insider” and nominated for an Academy Award. And most recently by his teaching gig while he was forging an alliance between the New York Times and the PBS documentary “Frontline.”

Bergman took us step-by-step through his 40 years in the news business, and he has not arrived in a happy place. In that journey, he cited two major changes — among many — that affected the transmission of news to the American public.

First, the changing of the concept of news gathering and presentation as a public service.

Second, the breaking down of the wall between the editorial and business ends of the media.

“The Federal Communications Commission turned the concept of public interest on its head, to what the public is interested in,” Bergman said. “It became an appliance, like a toaster. That’s what we see today. The reincarnation of the non-news story.”

Bergman built his reputation as always ready to back up strong opinions with actions; especially at CBS, where he dealt for the first time with the business end of the network crossing the editorial line with demands.

“When they got involved, I walked out,” he said. “The wall had been broken.”

Declining advertising revenue and increasing demands for greater profits from lay directors are continuing to cripple news gathering by causing severe reductions in editorial staff and the increasing use of pool reporters.

“Nobody is willing to pay for good reporting any longer,” Bergman said. “So what’s left of quality newscasts? And why should we care? Because first and foremost we get very little foreign news as a result.

“The Internet has changed everything. It’s double-edged with information for free, but readers online don’t generate advertising revenue. And with this new concept of public interest, we’re manipulated every day. In my business, if I wasn’t being used, I wouldn’t have my sources.”

When I asked him whether he got along with Mike Wallace at “60 Minutes,” Bergman said, “You can read it in my book.”

When and if that happens, it should be one hell of a book.

I’d like to throw in with Jim Righeimer’s views — as expressed last week in the Pilot — on conservation as a far better solution to our energy problems than exploiting our diminishing natural resources.

But I’ll have to admit up front that I found those views a mite surprising, especially as he played them off those of Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, who regards global warming as a left-wing conspiracy.

In keeping with Jim’s disclaimer about the bias built into his friendship with Rohrabacher, I must admit that my views are influenced by a friendship with caribou. That’s why I applauded Jim’s strongly worded objection to drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. He wrote: “God forbid if we drill on 1% of it during the winter (because) it might affect Caribou mating patterns.” God forbid, indeed.

There is one slight omission in his conservation column that I’m sure Jim overlooked and would want to see corrected.

Writing about Rohrabacher’s views on ocean drilling, Jim asked rhetorically: “Does he really want us to lose our unspoiled coastline views just to save the lives of some unknown soldiers?”

If I can be presumptuous, I think — in line with his earlier reasoning — he meant to ask: Do we really want to give up our sport utility vehicles?

Otherwise, he seems to be right on target except for his last paragraph, where, clearly with tongue in cheek, he wrote that the only responsible alternative to conservation is to “grow up and start acting like adults” — apparently by drilling oil wells in protected areas and building nuclear power plants.

I’m still a little bit shaken by a letter published last week in the Pilot from a reader who — I kid you not — is enchanted to have planes roaring overhead. She wrote that she lives right under the JWA flight pattern and tunes out the noise.

“I’m never aware of it,” she tells us, “unless I actually listen for a plane. I enjoy having an airport close by.”

Several alternative explanations occur to me. The letter writer is harder of hearing than I am — and I am plenty hard. Or — and I like this better — she is a mole, planted in Newport Beach by Irvine with instructions to write such things as: “The airport must be expanded” in our local newspapers.

Of course there is always the possibility that she is playing a little joke on all of us who look forward to a summer of trying to shout over aircraft noise when we venture to entertain guests on our patio. If that’s the case, then she certainly did fool me.

JOSEPH N. BELL lives in Newport Beach. His column runs Thursdays.