Tonya Harding

David Halberstam had been planning to speak about the 1950s for the Frank R. Kent Memorial Lecture at Johns Hopkins University tonight. But Tonya Harding changed his mind.Rather, it was the media's overheated coverage of the Olympic skater's trials and tribulations that got him concerned -- along with what he sees as the increasing tendency of the press to concentrate on the trivial at the expense of the important.So he's shelved his original topic, "The Fifties -- Then and Now," in favor of a speech that will pointedly criticize much of modern journalism, he said in a phone conversation from his New York home.

Whacked!That's the name of a publication that hit the stands recently. And gracing the cover is none other than America's sweetheart: Tonya Harding.So it's not a biography by William Manchester or Kitty Kelly, but they will come later, undoubtedly.An outfit called River Group is the perpetrator of this literary effort, sometimes known as a comic book, and these folks obviously know what they're doing. All the departments found in the slick jobs like Vogue, Harper's Bazaar, Cosmopolitan, Mad and Field & Stream are in evidence.

Tonya Harding blew it. She might have been U.S. National Champion lady figure skater in fair competition. She skated through incredible difficulties to a respectable eighth in the Olympics. She might have medaled in next week's World Championships in Japan. We'll never know. Nor will she.Ms. Harding pleaded guilty to a charge of conspiracy to hinder prosecution of the goons who smashed Nancy Kerrigan's knee on Jan. 6, putting her out of competition for the national championship. Ms. Harding does not admit approving that attack and will not be tried for it, though the prosecutor in Oregon continues to say that he has evidence that she did.Her sentence keeps her free, as long as she stays on the West Coast and the good side of her probation officer.

Plea bargains are practical solutions to legal problems but unsatisfactory endings to moral fables. So figure skater Tonya Harding's guilty plea to one count of conspiracy to hinder prosecution cannot satisfy the cravings of millions of spectators of courtroom sport for an acceptable conclusion.The bargain was consummated on a day of crucial testimony to an Oregon grand jury considering more serious charges against her, in the Jan. 6 beating of fellow competitor Nancy Kerrigan in Detroit.

NANCY Kerrigan grew up in Stoneham, Mass., a medium-sized town a few miles north of Boston.But these days she must feel as though she's living in old Salem Village, given the witch hunt to which she's been subjected.Unless you were a figure skating junkie, you hadn't heard or thought much about Ms. Kerrigan until early January. Then she was criminally assaulted in a Detroit arena, an attack that easily could have left her in a wheelchair.In the aftermath of the assault, Ms. Kerrigan made no comments at all about her skating opponent Tonya Harding, who may yet prove to have been directly involved in planning the attack.

Washington.--Last week Americans got two different views of ''Generation X.'' First, the popular new Winona Ryder movie ''Reality Bites,'' in which yuppie-hating twentysomething ''slackers'' come to grips with life, love and (gulp!) work. Second, the two Olympic figure skaters, Tonya Harding, 23, and Nancy Kerrigan, 24, competing in Lillehammer.In the movie, post-baby boomers have emerged from the wreckage of their parents' divorces, blended step-sibling families and indifferent education.

The violence that nearly redistributed the Olympic Gold Medal in Ladies Figure Skating was the crash in practice Thursday of two 16-year-olds skating backward. But it didn't. Oksana Baiul of Ukraine skated in a bandage and pain, beautifully, last night. The favorite, which she had been all along, won by a narrow margin.Ms. Baiul had stood second after the short program on Wednesday, and Tanja Szewczenko of Germany fifth, when they injured each other. That seemingly opened up the competition, making any outcome possible.

Maybe CBS' figure skating announcers were trying to be totally objective to Tonya Harding. Or maybe they weren't.In any case, the resentment crept through in the comments from Verne Lundquist and Scott Hamilton last night.CBS' cameras outside the ice rink (Hallway Cam?) caught Harding having trouble getting her skates laced when it was her time to come out for her long program.(As Harding later told CBS' Tracy Wilson, she had broken a lace and couldn't find one that fit.)Hamilton said: "Things like this just don't happen," adding that a skater should go ahead and perform anyway at that point.

The TV Repairman:Even on the nights it can't train its cameras on the skaters, CBS has done an exceptional job sustaining the interest in the competition with a series of previews that come close to matching the real thing.For instance, last night's report on the injuries suffered by world champion Oksana Baiul and Tanja Szewczenko in a collision during practice carried all the urgency of a Super Bowl quarterback hurting his arm the week of the big game.Then the net brought in the first team, Charles Kuralt, to tell the story of what 1960 champion Carol Heiss calls "the five sisters," the U.S. women who have captured gold medals since 1956.

Anna Campos and Nikki Seegmuller know Nancy Kerrigan's every move.Before the Olympics and before the scandal, Anna 11, of North Laurel, and Nikki, 8, of Ellicott City, saw the skater's elegant routine up close at the Tony Kent Arena in Cape Cod, Mass., where they traveled for training camps.The last time they saw Ms. Kerrigan was just after Christmas -- a week before she was injured in an attack linked to the former husband of rival skater Tonya Harding. They practiced on the ice with Ms. Kerrigan as part of a five-day training session with Lisa Cappola, an employee of Ms. Kerrigan's coaches Evy and Mary Scotvold.