Stop the presses! John Stossel has a scoop. In his one-hour special, “The In Crowd and Social Cruelty,” (9 p.m., ABC), the intrepid news correspondent diligently informs us that bullies are mean, kids can be cruel, and grown-ups even grown-up network correspondents like Stossel can still remember the pain of being a geek in the seventh grade.

Apparently, John Stossel doesn’t watch a lot of television or go to the movies often. Didn’t a forgettable teen flick called “The In Crowd” bomb about 15 seconds ago? Doesn’t he know that every series on the WB trades in the teen-age rites of conformity, cruelty and ostracism? You would think Stossel might question how popular culture reflects or affects contemporary cruelty.

Instead, we hear from a battery of experts, including psychologist Michael Thompson, author of “Best Friend, Worst Enemies,” (Ballantine, 2001). After studying child psychology for decades, he has discovered that kids “are desperate to be popular.” Wow, that’s a startling revelation. Thompson also opines that having friends is very, very important. It doesn’t matter whether a child has two friends or five. Even one good friend is OK. But having no friends is definitely bad. Does this guy charge by the hour? I learned more about childhood psychology watching last night’s presentation of “A Charlie Brown Valentine.”

To be fair, “The In Crowd” does contain some harrowing and heart-breaking hidden-camera footage of bullies and their prey on a Canadian school playground. Stossel also interviews bullies who offer little remorse for their actions. For about 10 minutes, “The In Crowd” reports on some interesting experiments at schools throughout the country, where bullies and the bullied are urged to open lines of communication through counseling and workshops. We even see some heartening scenes of tormentors who have befriended their former victims.

Unfortunately, Stossel never strays terribly far from self-evident profundity. He offers the not-so-novel observation that adults act very much like kids. They seek approval and popularity through conformity. For evidence, he turns to a 40-year-old clip from “Candid Camera.”

“Inside TV Land” continues its salute to Black History Month with “African-Americans in Television Drama” (8 p.m., TV Land). Filled with great clips of vintage series, including “East Side/West Side,” the short-lived 1963 drama starring George C. Scott as a social worker. Cicely Tyson played his assistant, the first black actress or actor in a regular role in a TV drama. Other highlights include the day Uhura (Nichelle Nichols) of “Star Trek” shared TV’s first interracial kiss with Capt. Kirk (William Shatner).

Tonight’s other highlights:

Scheduled on “48 Hours” (7 p.m., CBS): police mismanage the hunt for a serial killer in Spokane, Wash.

Olympic coverage (7 p.m., NBC) continues. Highlights include Men’s Snowboard Parallel Giant Slalom.

Jason Biggs stars in the popular 1999 teen sex farce “American Pie” (7 p.m., Fox).

A 23rd-century cab driver (Bruce Willis) must save the world in the 1997 thriller “The Fifth Element” (7 p.m., UPN).