Page 34 - Tracy Anderson Issue

Bitchin & Moaning

By Judith A. Habert

What has happened to TV news and Sports? I can’t help but wonder if a woman hoping to be in this profession, if you are not willing to wear a
there has been a new mandate from all television networks, that female short tight dress, pick another career.”
Anchors and Sportscasters are not allowed in front of the camera unless When I think of Sportscasters I think of retired athletes who can no longer
they are wearing bandage dresses that are at least two sizes too small play on the field, so they talk in the locker rooms or in the sportscaster
and more than fifteen inches above the knee! booths or on the fields. Of late, men are the minority in the Sportscaster
I do understand that there has always been a double standard on field. There was something to be said listening to those seasoned athletes
Network News: Men stay who had war stories of
around much longer as their days behind the glove
anchors and sportscasters or throwing the football.
because they are thought to Perhaps it was the faded
look distinguished and more machismo that kept our
knowledgeable. Women attention and that there
are shown the door once was life after playing
they start to show their age sports.
- that usually being anything Instead there are women
over 35. in the locker room with a
This has been taken to a microphone, shoving it in
whole new level though. If the face of a half -naked
you have watched TV lately athlete while wearing their
you will see that it appears party dresses. Rumor has
as if one network is com- it that it originated out of
peting against the next to Miami where stations were
see how low the necklines in constant
can go and how high the competition for the most
hemlines. In a recent panel beautiful and sexy weather
discussion, I cringed as I girls. Ratings
watched a group of four skyrocketed and people
female newswomen sitting not even living in Miami
around a male anchor. As suddenly gained interest
the camera panned from in the daily accuweather
34 one to the other and they forecasts: News shot over
crossed and uncrossed the Internet had developed
their legs I recalled the a national following rather
famous scene with Sharon than just local or regional.
Stone (in Basic Instinct). Now even the most
But instead of one there conservative and slow-
was a quartet of them. to-change agency, Major
I can only imagine how League Baseball, has
difficult it must have been gone the route of not only
for the male viewers to pay reporting the scores, but
attention to what was being also making men wonder
said, while concentrating on if they can score with the
hemline movement. hot female Sportscasters.
We have some amazing Perhaps this has increased
female anchors in San with the rise of ever more
Diego; women who have expensive Cable broad-
been in their jobs for casting special packages.
years, like Kimberly Hunt, In this day and age, we
who graced our cover a do not need to discour-
few years ago. She is a age our young intelligent
strikingly beautiful woman, female college women
but has always dressed from entering into a field
impeccably without having that clearly needs bright
to rely on these tactics to new talent. If you can get
get attention. Matter of fact, past the outfits, the current
she recently won an Emmy ranks of female broadcast
- it was for talent not how journalists are intelligent
much leg she showed. and excellent at what they do, but many viewers cannot look or listen past
What is most troubling is the message given to young women who chose their less than dignified apparel. Come on MLB and news stations across
to someday become members of the nightly news. What happened to the America. Don’t you think that there is enough news breaking events that
belief that talent and hard work was the combination to success in the talk over the Internet should not be hemlines but storylines?
broadcast journalism? Now it appears the message being sent is, “As