CNN Co-Anchor Crier Meets the Press : Television: The former Texas state judge defends her right to be a journalist. She cites her training as a trial lawyer and professor.

Catherine Crier, the tall, blond beauty who went from Texas state judge in Dallas to co-anchor of CNN’s nightly “The World Today” in October, did not go quietly into Thursday as she defended her qualifications to front a national newscast.

Facing about 125 reporters and columnists who are at the Century Plaza to make the rounds of TV executives and stars this month as part of their annual summer tour, Crier was hit with a flurry of questions about her career switch.

How would she feel if Diane Sawyer went to the Texas bench? What qualifications does Crier have to do journalism? Did her looks have anything to do with her new job? Is there jealousy among women at CNN who were passed over for the job?

Without blinking, Crier, wearing a shocking-pink suit with a string of pearls, flew right into the jaws of the questions, while her boss, Ted Turner, was in the audience next to his frequent companion, Jane Fonda, also in a summer pink ensemble and looking blond.

What right does Crier have to be a journalist? The “life and career path” of a journalist and a lawyer, particularly one involved in litigation, are “very, very similar,” she contended. Her experience, she said, included “interviewing witnesses, hitting the streets, working with the stories on a head-to-head basis just as a journalist would, developing a presentation, delivering that presentation, teaching as a law professor, teaching around the country as an advocacy instructor, everything from writing the past 12 years little treatises to communications techniques for lawyers.”

She also said she had “particularized training” as a trial lawyer and professor with an interest in international and political affairs: “Look at stories today. I would say that 60%, 70% of the stories are somehow legally related.”

How about her looks?: “You’re asking me to make an evaluation that I was not called upon to make.” At the press conference with her was Bob Furnad, CNN vice president and senior executive producer, who said that he hires by talent, “but appearance is one of the factors.”

Crier didn’t comment on Sawyer’s credibility as a judge, but said she didn’t feel that “the experience base of going from judge to journalism works well the other way around.”

As for the question of whether other women at CNN felt passed over by her appointment, Furnad said that other women on the staff already had other strong responsibilities and were all important and doing a great job. Then why, asked one reporter, were they not here?

He returned with a smile, “Because we all knew you wanted to attack this woman.”

Meanwhile, CNN announced Thursday that on July 23, its hour “Newsnight” series will add an “interactive” segment in which viewers can vote to select what stories will be covered on the program.

By calling a 900 telephone number, viewers will be able to vote on as many as six stories on which they would like more background. The two stories that get the most votes will be covered later in the broadcast, usually by repeating a report from earlier in the day.

“CNN will retain complete editorial control over the stories we air,” Furnad said in response to a question about whether the network was relinquishing its news judgment to viewers.

The cable networks have been announcing a tidal wave of new shows during their sessions with the reporters:

* On Oct. 14, A&E; will premiere “The Inside Track With Graham Nash,” a Sunday night series in which musician-composer-activist Nash will talk with artists about themselves, their music and their social ideas.

* The Disney Channel, in conjunction with Jim Henson Productions, is ready to launch a series Aug. 25 of 13 half-hours of Mother Goose stories (three tales per show) as adapted in the Muppet manner from L. Frank Baum’s “Mother Goose in Prose.”

* Financial News Network will do three new series in the fall, including “Power Profiles,” a day-in-the-life look at major business executives.

* Showtime said that it will start production next month on the first of six half-hour adaptations of satirist Kurt Vonnegut Jr. short stories from his “Welcome to the Monkey House” collection, published in 1968. Vonnegut will host the shows, at least to start: “I could stink up the joint,” he said.

He declared himself pleased with the first two scripts by veteran writer-producer Stan Daniels. They read “better than when I wrote them. . . . I’m one of the few people who was ever on Earth to be grateful to Hollywood. Margaret Mitchell and I are crazy about Hollywood.”