Ringmaster!

The Jerry Springer Show employs a dentist for the program's many guests with few or no teeth. That's the most sensational thing you'll learn in Ringmaster!, Springer's part autobiography, part behind-the-scenes show guide. What's more shocking is the amount of time Springer spends portraying himself as a liberal, civic-minded ex-politician (he served as mayor of Cincinnati for four years) who fights prejudice in all forms because some of his relatives were killed in the Holocaust. He takes a near-belligerent tone with critics: Why must his show be maligned, Springer asks, when TV news ''seriously exploits and hurts people every day''? Once he's hammered that point home, he delivers the good stuff, like the dirt on the guest who had sex with his horse. C