Springer Hedges On Violence

TV talk show host Jerry Springer spent several hours on the hot seat before Chicago City Council today, defending the violence on his program, CBS News Correspondent Drew Levinson reports.

The air was filled with plenty of sarcastic remarks and "oohs" from the crowd as Springer took the hot seat Friday before city aldermen to answer what seemed to be a simple question.

Is the violence -- the eye-pokings, the hair-pulling and all-out brawls -- on his controversial TV show staged or real?

"It looks real to me," a shrugging Springer told a hearing of the council's Police and Fire Committee. He admitted there had been some staged incidents during the Chicago-based show's eight-year run.

But "overwhelmingly, the show is real," he said.

Alderman Ed Burke, a former policeman, has said that if the violence is real, off-duty Chicago police officers who work for Springer should cuff show guests who get out of hand and haul them off to jail. If it's fake, he says Springer should get an entertainment license.

Sometimes vague, sometimes defiant and always ducking responsibility for anything other than his duties as the talk show's host, Springer held court in what more often resembled one of his own shows than a formal hearing. All the ingredients were there: cheering fans, hissing opponents and a block of as many as 20 TV cameras, including at least one from The Jerry Springer Show.

As the hearing got under way, Springer drew applause when he objected to some of Burke's questions, including one aimed at determining how much money he makes.

"That's none of your business," Springer said. "If you want some money, I'll loan you some."

At one point, when questioned about his producers allegedly bringing a banned felon into the country to appear on the show, Springer chose not to answer -- with the permission of the committee's chairman. He then leaned toward the microphone with a grin and sniped, "I've never been a member of the Communist Party."

Though he had been threatened with subpoena, Springer came to the hearing voluntarily. But he said he really thought the committee should be concentrating on more serious matters.

"There's a lot of difference in the violence that happens on the streets of Chicago and the roughhousing that takes place in our studio," Springer said, likening the fights on his show to brawls at a hockey game.

He said guests were free to file complaints against one another. The off-duty officers also had the discretion to make arrests and have done so on rare occasions.

Burke, who played several fight scenes from Springer's "best of" videotape for the hearing, tried to pin Springer down by asking him to read the state's laws against domestic abuse.

Burke implied that the brawls on the show were no different than domestic fights that led to more than 17,000 arrests in Chicago in 1997. Other aldermen also scoffed at the violence.

Sringer balked at the comparison and said his show might even curb violence, because it shows it in all its unattractive glory.

"Nobody watches our show and thinks, 'Wow, that's behavior that I think everyone's going to love...,'" Springer said. "You do away with that and we'll go back to violence on television being totally sanitized."

He may have to clean up his act anyway.

Last week, the show's distributor issued an order forbidding fights and has already replaced some scheduled episodes with tamer shows -- an agreement that Springer has already reneged on once.

The Rev. Michael Pfleger, a Catholic priest who prompted the committee to take up the matter, said he plans to hold distributor Studios USA Network to that promise.

"I expect them to follow through, to stop all violence on the show, and if Mr. Springer fails to adhere to that he should be fired," Pfleger said after the hearing.

In the end, the aldermen tabled a resolution that would force officers to make arrests if the violence were deemed real.

Alderman Dorothy Tillman called the hearing a waste of time.

"He really sat here and tried to turn it into The Jerry Springer Show," Tillman told her colleagues. Then she turned her comments to Springer.

"Jerry, through it all, you won," she said.