The Anchor Woman Cameth and Goeth And The Horse Race Goes On.

I know it's old news but sometimes it takes us awhile to really gain perspective on what our world has come to. I recently found myslef thinking about the fall season of televsion on the Big Networks and the writers strike. I found myself making a mental list of all the reality shows that are on televsion and how many had original premises etc. Then I had an eerie feeling creep up my spine and I found myself remembering one show in particular that had stuck in my craw.
I wrote about it at the time for a newspaper column but I think it's still relevant so is a slightly updated version. Comments will be appreciated on this one.

A couple of months ago Fox had started the full court press for a new (not surprisingly soon cancelled) show it launched this fall season. Maybe you remember seeing the commercials for “Anchor Woman”. The spots featured a gravely voiced narrator intoning that most important of American Journalistic questions: “What happens when a bikini model becomes the anchor woman of a network news broadcast?”
The first time I saw the ad it just rolled off my jaded exterior. I don’t expect much from television anymore. Aside from a few good shows a decade and the credible work of a few news magazines, television is like the villain from the book and move “The Never Ending Story”. The Nothing was a huge black hole that kept expanding, dragging everything good and right down into the abyss. Now that’s television.
However the second time I saw the commercial, watching this admittedly quite pretty and buxom blond reveling in her obvious ignorance, I felt a mild revulsion. Not extreme mind you, more along the lines of what I feel when I go into a rural gas station and see that they are selling “food”. I go over to the deli case, press my palms against the glass and peer down at the greasy, deep fried cuts of grade F meat and I get a small shiver in my gut. I know someone is going to be made sick from this stuff but they are only selling because there is someone buying and when I see that someone I think to myself, “Well I wouldn’t eat it but hey, to each his own. . . “
By the 200th time I saw the spot fir “Anchor Woman” my mild revulsion had turned to full blown self righteous outrage. Why the change of attitude? Well, I suddenly realized that there is an un-shown subtext to this abomination. Somewhere out there is a community turning on the television each night, expecting a news broadcast and are instead getting a stream of meaningless inanities delivered by a person whose sole qualification is that she looks fantastic in a bathing suit. Call me crazy, call me naïve but I think that if someone has decided to plop themselves down and turn on the news they should be able to reasonably expect to see . . . news. And is it an unreasonable expectation that the news be delivered by, well, news people? Heck, journalists even?
Now by the 600th time I’d seen the spot I became convinced that this was the 7th seal breaking. Ladies and gentleman, sanity has left the building. Would the last person out kindly remember to put out the lights?
Republican, Democrat, Green, Libertarian or Independent we are at a moment in American history where we face significant challenges. Whether you believe the terrorist threat to this nation is existential or has been blown out of proportion for partisan political gain, we are in the midst of an election cycle that demands a fully informed electorate. In a nation facing such crises as rising numbers of uninsured, questions about the balance between security and civil liberties, two wars, a faltering stock market, slowed job and wage growth, rising debt, mortgage foreclosures and more, even local news stations need to be reporting to their communities where they stand and what they need from government. Is it too much to ask that television news rooms spend less time having bikini models read cue cards about car accidents and more time having journalists do stories on the many, varied and hugely important local and national political issues and what they mean for communities across the country?
And, PLEASE, don’t tell me that this is to be expected from local news. I know that most anchors have their jobs because they have nice teeth and hair but in the past we maintained at least the veneer of journalistic credibility. By removing even the façade we have given the inmates the keys to the asylum. If local news producers are comfortable giving an anchor chair to a bikini model you can’t honestly tell me that the same network executives who thought up this brilliant idea haven’t been giving national news chairs to people based on things other than journalistic pedigree. There are so many capable male and female journalists who aren’t even considered for network anchor jobs because the network executives think your decision about which news show to watch depends on which channel’s anchor looks best.
The printed word is a dying thing. Why would you read this when you can ogle a blond with a knockout body and STILL feel you’ve done your civic responsibility to keep up with the news. And, yes, it is a civic duty to consume news, but what choices are left. The Big Three primetime news shows are worse than they have ever been.
“Advertising dollars rule television and ratings are what get those advertisers,” the executives say. But I say maybe it is time to finally enforce the spirit of the rules that say television must, in return for the free use of our airwaves (an amazingly lucrative resource these days), must report on issues of public importance. And I’m not talking about airing a Presidential debate once every four years. If that’s all we get for the use of our airwaves then forget it. You can keep the debates and start paying fair market value for the resource you are using.
“Yes, there are problems but we are only giving the people what they want. They won’t watch news and there is no solution to people’s tastes," the executives say. Wrong. I have a great place to start. Once a week, in primetime, every single channel, should be forced to do one hour of programming on issues facing America. We can give it a Patriotic name so every one can get behind it, something like “America’s Hour”. It should be done with minimal
advertising. Say . . . six minutes on the hour, and this goes for cable too. If you don’t want to do the programming you can go dark for the hour
Sure, no one can force us to watch, but I’m betting that given the chance an awful lot of people will. Now the only question is which channel’s “America’s Hour” will you decide to watch? If you hate news that much, if you have absolutely no desire to be informed, well that is still your right. However, now your only choice will be to turn off the television and read, or play with your kids or maybe call your mother. You won’t be learning anything about he issues but at least you’ll be spending your time more constructively that watching a model straining to pronounce the big words on the cue cards, just like a real network anchor woman.