That's Infotainment!

Whatever that statement is, of course, remains less than clear -- to the viewer and to many of the people who work on the show. Still, Jacobs hazards an explanation: "It's a way for people who get home at seven, seven-fifteen, a quarter of seven to get some news of the day -- whether it's national, local, world -- and some celebrity gossip and some entertainment and to know that 'here's what happened today, yeah, I'm getting it, it's kinda fun, so I'm not coming home from a ten-hour day and being bombarded with the daily tragedies that have happened, but instead I'm getting my fill of news and getting it in an entertaining fashion.'

"I'm going for a show for people coming home that is fun to watch, and they feel that they know what happened today, what happened everywhere," she continues. "If it happened and it's newsworthy, then it'll be on the show."

As Jacobs speaks, Deco Drive producers are clustered upstairs in their cluttered office, sketching out the contents of the evening's show, which will begin with a report about Whitewater defendant James MacDougal. Then a quick ascent into lighter fare, including: a man in Santa Ana, California, who has been burgled three times in quick succession ("Bill says he bought a gun for the next time the robbers pay a visit," anchor Martinez will announce and then add a touch of that celebrated attitude: "Deco says: You might want to consider moving"); a Metro-Dade police officer who delivers a baby on the street; parents in Dallas who enter their infants in a crawling race, the so-called Diaper Derby; and pieces of an airplane that fall from the sky and puncture a house in St. Petersburg ("I'm glad it wasn't a hole in my head!" exclaims the homeowner in a taped interview. "Yeah," snickers Belkys Nerey, "we're glad it wasn't either").

Nothing about Janet Reno's deliberations about whether to launch a probe into the White House fundraising scandal. Nothing about the Miami City Commission's budget-recovery plan. Nothing about Albania, Israel, or Zaire.

"You want it to be newsworthy but you don't want it to be depressing," Jacobs explains. She leans even farther forward over her elbows and smiles. The phone rings but she ignores it. "You might see the same story [on other newscasts], but when you see it on Deco it won't be presented in the same way. It'll have that Deco spin. The way Deco's going to present it, you'll kind of go, 'Ahhh! It's different!'