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Elle Duncan, TV, and the Pregnant Woman

Discussion in 'Sports and News' started by Songbird, Jun 24, 2018.

  1. Songbird

    Songbird Well-Known Member

    There was a time you couldn't even say the word pregnant on TV. This morning I watched SportsCenter and was shocked to see Elle Duncan still anchoring this late in the stage of her pregnancy. She's got to be due any day. This screenshot doesn't do it justice but she did a segment standing up and her baby bump his huge. Credit to ESPN for letting her be in front of the camera for as long as she wants.

    This story shows some of the ways TV shows have embraced or masked the real woman who were pregnant.

    28 Ways TV Shows Bared or Covered Pregnant Bellies

    Screen Shot 2018-06-24 at 9.42.05 AM.png
     
  2. cjericho

    cjericho Well-Known Member

    Good for her. Was it that way just because so few women worked 30-40 years ago?
     
  3. jr/shotglass

    jr/shotglass Well-Known Member

    No, I think it was more about the same mentality that made censors keep one actor or actress' foot on the ground when they were doing a love scene.
     
  4. Roscablo

    Roscablo Well-Known Member

    I say good for her too. Is it surprising she's working this close to her due date because of TV? My wife worked hours before delivering three of our four kids and she's in a demanding position. I don't know if it's crazy to work right up to labor or not. Everyone is different. I also get something like TV is a different beast all together, but if women want to and can work right up until the end of pregnancy then they should be able to.
     
    cjericho likes this.
  5. exmediahack

    exmediahack Well-Known Member

    My co-anchor has been pregnant three times - one miscarriage that she had to suffer through privately and two healthy pregnancies since.

    There’s little things I’ll do to help out. Offer to do more of the interviews so that she doesn’t have to deal with more unflattering shots. Let her decide on the level of humor within a newscast. If she’s having a rough day in that last trimester, just offer... anything... to lighten the workload.

    It’s just simple decency. I’ve never had a living being kicking in a uterus while I’m trying to read stories about tornado damage.

    Likewise, in the months leading to my divorce, she was happy to do the little tasks when I would be working off two hours of sleep from all the arguing/abuse at home.
     
  6. jr/shotglass

    jr/shotglass Well-Known Member

    It's the little things like that which make some jobs better than others. Kudos to you for helping to make your job one of those.
     
    exmediahack likes this.
  7. terrier

    terrier Well-Known Member

    I wonder if the Sara Walsh mess played into this.
     
  8. exmediahack

    exmediahack Well-Known Member

    Was thinking about this just now.

    Outside of my kids and my college roommate, I can’t think of anyone outside of my co-anchor who I talk about life more than her. Right now it’s about parenting — I’m 11 years ahead of her on being a parent so I can relate to the stages.

    We’ve bared our souls and sins of the past to each other the five years we’ve been working together - she is mocking my current dating partners - but she also shut down any loose talk in her society circles about how bad my home life was.

    It’s funny. We have ZERO shared interests. Not a damn thing except we both love college football.

    We never hang out outside the office except we eat breakfast across the street once a month to talk about the newscasts and our morning team. Our boss even pays for it. “Cheaper than a focus group or counseling.”

    It seems to work. We do have chemistry on the air and that’s the main thing for us.
     
  9. justgladtobehere

    justgladtobehere Well-Known Member

    My market has 5 English language stations producing local news. In addition to the women co-hosting, about half of the meteorologists are women. Seems like one is pregnant at any given time and every meteorologist has been pregnant at least once in the last five years. It's not a big deal.
     
  10. PCLoadLetter

    PCLoadLetter Well-Known Member

    While it's not a big deal to you - and it shouldn't be - I guarantee you the viewer emails to the stations about those meteorologists would cause you to lose your faith in humanity.
     
    Donny in his element likes this.
  11. exmediahack

    exmediahack Well-Known Member

    “As far as I know” my co-anchor didn’t get too many of those awful emails from viewers but she did get some.

    Those days were awful for her because it’s a hard enough job when you’ve got a baby growing inside of you.

    My go-to line for her was... “38 share”.

    That always seemed to make it better.
     
  12. Songbird

    Songbird Well-Known Member

    Nobody cares about the local weather girl whereas ESPN seemingly has a black problem ... a political problem ... a cocaine problem ... in other words, an image problem. So I do find it interesting to see a pregnant anchor standing for a segment and looking like she's ready to blow.
     
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