Disgraced celebrity

We only get the edited down version of 20/20 (Pearl, 8.55pm), so we will not see the famous Marv Albert-Barbara Walters interview screened on November 7 in the US, that caused presenter Hugh Downs to walk off the show. TVB, no doubt rightly, guessed that most of us have not heard of Marv Albert, so decided to cut that part.

Or perhaps someone just agreed with Downs that the unusual sexual preferences of a disgraced, and convicted national sportscaster, are not news, merely titillating gossip.

20/20, like its chief rival news magazine, CBS's 60 Minutes, prides itself on running hard news stories, important interviews, and does not need to descend to cover tabloid scandals. The version we will see tonight, for example, includes one segment on how prison inmates in 33 American states do work that gives them access to other people's credit cards, social security numbers, addresses and even medical records.

Downs has been saying to anyone who would listen that 20/20 would not dream of talking to Marv Albert. He even went on Larry King Live on CNN to say so. So when it was announced that his co-host Barbara Walters would interview Albert, with his long-suffering fiancee Heather, Downs had little choice but to absent himself from the show until it was all over.

One can sympathise with his distaste. Hard news the Marv Albert story is not. One of Walters' questions to Albert was 'Is wearing women's underwear part of your turn on?' to which Albert answered, 'No, not at all.' Even one year ago Albert might have deserved the Walters treatment simply because he is so famous. Until he was charged in June with sexually assaulting a woman in a Virginia hotel room, he was America's best-known sports presenter and also one of David Letterman's most frequent guests.

By the time he pleaded guilty this month in return for lessening the charges to a misdemeanour, the tabloid press were full of stories about his preferences for group sex, wearing women's clothes, and the New York party circuit favoured by transvestites and, before her murder, the famous New York dominatrix Madame Hilda.