Like most news junkies, I need several fixes a day, which I get by surfing between CNN's headline station in Atlanta and its Washington bureau, with stops at local network affiliates if it happens to be prime time. But while other viewers perk up their ears for news of the Middle East or developments in the O.J. trial, not to mention‹at every quarter hour on Headline News‹the latest report on the Dow, sports, and the entertainment industry, I find myself scrutinizing Lynne Russell's hairstyle. Then I have to stop and ask myself, ³Why am I thinking about this?"

But wait, you ask, who is Lynne Russell? Quiz the proverbial person on the street, and he or she might name CNN anchor Bernard Shaw, best known as the reporter who queried Dukakis during the 1988 election debates about how he'd respond if his wife were raped. (On the air since 1980, CNN still only reaches a mere 500,000 or so households in the U.S. on an average news day, which explains why no one at CNN is truly a houshold name.) Other news buffs will point to veteran Judy Woodruff and Gulf War star Peter Arnett. Or perhaps Christiane Amanpour, the network's 35-year-old foreign correspondent who's maintained a high profile throughout the war in Bosnia. Indeed, the network tends to downplay its anchors, selling instead its round-the-clock reporting instead.

But for those of us who relish Headline News, the face we recognize is Russell's. Make that eyebrows and cheekbones, because even in an industry that emphasizes good looks, Russell's Hollywood-studio-era glamour stands out. Here's a woman who's got Joan Crawford's brow, Walter Cronkite's diction, Carole Lombard's loony good nature‹and the most unsung wardrobe and hairstyle repertoire on TV. What's more, Russell, who delivers the news on the 7 to 11 p.m. shift, brings us everything from the William Kennedy Smith rape trial to the Woodstock reunion with her tongue planted deeply in her chisled cheeks. Could this be a bona fide personality emerging from the automaton ranks at Headline News?

The transfixing thing about watching Russell read the news is not just that she's drop-dead gorgeous, but that she's sexy as well. She's got none of the starry-eyed blankness that infects network dollies such as Connie Chung or Deborah Norville. (They seem to exist in a world where crime and grittiness are, well, news to them.) And she evidently left the fresh-faced intelligence of someone like Jane Pauley behind at puberty, forsaking the world-weary toughness of more experienced female anchors such as Leslie Stahl or Woodruff in favor of something that looks dangerously like a sense of humor.

Russell's job history is unremarkable. Before she showed up on Headline News in 1983, she'd reportedly done stints as a nursing student and then as a secretary at a radio station in Colorado. She worked as a program director for Miami's talk-oriented WKAT, and then as a TV reporter in Jacksonville, Boston, and San Antonio. It's hard to imagine the impression she created as a young woman, but at 47, Russell exudes a knowing air of sexual experience with each line she reads. This doesn't always work in her favor‹it occasionally calls more attention to her than to the news she's reporting. Still, what's likely to make you stop and stare is the realization that you've probably never before encountered such unabashed mature female sexuality from anyone on a TV news program.

Not that Russell flirts with viewers. Rather, drawing her moxie up into her voluptuous lips, she seems to be defying anyone who might not take her seriously: ``I've got the statistics/quotes/headlines right here, buddy, so listen up.'' Indeed, Russell is so entertaining that it's worth tuning in to CNN just to see how she'll announce a given story. I rush to say that she's never smug, or even inappropriate, in the face of serious topics. But after the murder of a doctor outside an abortion clinic in Jacksonville, Florida, earlier this year, she reported that ``The Justice Department is investigating a possible conspiracy,'' a pronouncement that featured a knowing, cat-eating-the-canary smile on the word ``conspiracy.'' The word, after all, in our post-JFK world, trembles with mixed implications.

No network anchor would get away with that. Indeed, network anchors sell themselves (or are sold by their networks) as personalities fit to bring you the news. We choose among Dan Rather or Peter Jennings or Tom Brokaw, and their counterparts at the network affiliates, because of their various paternal, trustworthy, or anayltic qualities. But, as everyone's already noticed, they're all variations of vanilla. (And the ridiculous strictures that network news places on the appearance of its female anchors hardly bears more commentary.) Maybe that's why it's so thrilling to see someone as renegade as Russell, forging ahead with her shoulder pads, into an arena that traditionally quashes true personality.

Actually, if the men on CNN tend to be older than newsreaders at network affiliates, the women on CNN tend to fall outside the tiny boundaries of traditional prettiness and still remain credible, not to mention attractive. (CNN's Toria Tolley may have the distinction, however, of being the world's only cross-eyed TV journalist.) Although there's been some cross-fertilization between the cable operation and various network news desks (ex-judge Christine Crier, who left her CNN gig for ABC, is the most notable example), CNN is no breeding ground for network egos. With its two all-news channels, and 24 hours of airtime to fill, the cable station pays its anchors less than the networks. There are no magazine shows, no Nightline, no exclusive interviews to bring an anchor into focus. (Larry King Live is by far the most watched CNN program.) So what's an attention-hungry anchor to do?

Russell's answer is to dress to kill. Indeed, it's always fascinating to see what Russell has on. Or, to be more specific, how she's wearing what's she's got on. Six months ago, she went on air in a man's three piece suit, poking sly fun at the traditional anchor's image. She changes her hair with startling flair, moving back and forth from an Annette Funicello tease to a severe bun to her business-as-usual Crawford-as-Mildred Pierce bouffant. Attention to image is hardly unique in the news business, but rarely is control in the hands of the anchor herself‹what's revolutionary is that Russell exercises her own ideas about how she should look. Indeed, I occasionally find myself wondering: I know what job she has now, but what job is she auditioning for?

As of yet, the anchor hasn't announced any acting aspirations, but a recent People magazine article revealed that she does have a few off-air attention-getting tricks up her sleeve. According to that item, Russell works part time, with no pay, for United Security Group, an Atlanta-based operation that not only provides bodyguards for visiting film stars (³whom she declines to name'') but also sends the anchor out on various sleuthing gigs. And when her PI experience led her to a stint as a volunteer deputy sheriff for Fulton County, Georgia, People reported, she found herself standing in the middle of a congested intersection directing traffic. If that's not the center of attention, what is?

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