TV NEWS MOMENT OF THE WEEK

WHEN HE WAS in town last Tuesday, Arnold Schwarzenegger made the now-traditional stop at a local firehouse before going on to the Garden.

In and amongst stories about protests, lost business, security lapses and an epidemic of convention-related psychiatric troubles, footage of the visit broadcast on Channel 7 Eyewitness news at 5 that evening showed the former action star giving a pep talk to the firefighters.

"I want to tell you," he said in his deteriorating accent, "how much I respect the courage that you have and the balls that you have to do what you do."

As if hearing Arnold Schwarzenegger use the word "balls" on the evening news wasn't enough, they immediately cut back to anchorman Bill Ritter, who remarked with a straight face, "We'd like to remind viewers that 29 of the city's firefighters are women."