Gretchen Carlson suing Roger Ailes for sexual harassment

Two of my former colleagues left to do that.

Where ARE all these cushy PR jobs, and how come I never see them when I go on hospital career sites?

 

Let's name some names:

 

I had the same thought. I feel bad for Ms Carlson and I'm sure that there's not only truth in her complaint but she's not the only one.

But she was hired, essentially, to be the female face of Family values network. An avowed conservative lets go back the 1950's where women are subordinate to their men. Where sex discrimination laws are for pinko lefty college women who don't shave their pits and breast feed in public.

Douchery is named in the complaint as being a douche bag. I hope his wife has a good lawyer

 

That has to be such an incredible struggle. My wife has the TV set to start at 6:45 am on a local news show. The woman who does the traffic updates (who does weather on other shows) is thirty-fiveish. We watch what she wears with some amusement. It has to be hard to find wardrobe that looks nice, is attractive and well fitting while not being way too much for the early am. So often it looks like she's done the walk of shame in last night's little black dress.

In a general sense I have a lot of empathy for women whose career hangs in large part on their appearance. We all age, and that struggle to hang on for a couple of more years has to be terrible. While it is hard enough for women in TV journalism, I really feel for Hollywood starlet types, who are as disposable as Kleenex. For every Vanna White there are ten thousand nameless beautiful women who get aged out.

 

Friend of mine who used to work as a TV reporter now does the same. He's good at it, too. Is this the new natural progression?

 

Yes, but there are millions of worthwhile things to do outside of television news.

Here's a funny story....

I worked with a wonderful female meteorologist for a few years at one of my stops.

She was MILF-ish - slash- Cougar-ish when I worked with her 10 years ago. She did age, but aged well, IMO. She always dressed classy. She didn't do too much Botox. She looks her age-- mid 50's-- but looks like a very happy, pleasant, put-together woman in her 50s.

Well the station liked her, and she was popular. They even gave her a specialty half hour show on the weekends. But I think she got bored with it.

Living an hour from New York City, she ended up auditioning for a small role as a TV reporter on Law & Order. Her look and slightly NY accent made her a perfect fit for this. She landed the role... then another... then another... then another.....

Would you believe she now has a second career as an actress, of all things?

Life is full of opportunity.

 

http://nypost.com/2015/11/24/every-meteorologist-is-wearing-this-dress/

 

I remember being excited when I got to switch to Beta from 3/4 inch tape. Been a while.

 

It's amazing how shitty viewers are to female on-air talent. Someone wrote to our station to say it was a pity that our main anchor felt she had to dress like a whore. She was offended because the anchor's dress was sleeveless. (And a huge percentage of the really snide comments come from women.)

Some of you probably saw this, but about a year ago a male anchor in Australia -- I think he hosts the equivalent of the Today Show there -- announced that he had worn the same suit and tie on-air every day for a year. He was dismayed at all of the ugly emails and comments his female co-workers had to deal with because of what they wore, and he was curious if anyone would notice that he had the same clothes on every day. Not one person had noticed.

 

Amazing. Now, I won't pretend I don't find the local TV women attractive, but lordy. Have some respect.

 

And how often did he have it cleaned? LOL

 

If you're a male anchor, just wear the suits when you're on air. That makes them last longer. I have 11 suits that I keep in a rotation - black, blue and two greys. Some have stripes, some don't.

Eye-rolling in 3...2...1: every other Friday, I spend 60-90 minutes ironing dress shirts while watching my Royals. I "set my rotation" for the next two weeks on suits/shirt combos. All of my best ties I keep at work to match whatever she is wearing that day. Always keep one black suit at work in case tragic news hits (the famous SI piece in 1988 on Bryant Gumbel taught me that).

When I reported a few days a week, my clothes would be beaten up from heat, cold, mud, getting in and out of cars. Now that I'm a house cat, cleaning isn't as frequent.

I know my co-anchor has to mix up anywhere between 15 dresses of different colors. The hardest comments for her are when we're out at a public event and some old lady comes up and says "you look thinner than on TV!".

We know Mable means well but, damn, she'll get into a tailspin for a week after that of obsessing over her diet and workouts.

There are little things to do to help out as a male anchor. Offer to do the few extra recordings for radio before the news (takes me 7 minutes exactly to get ready, take her 25), if she leaves something in her car at 3 am by accident, offer to walk her out to get it because of security. She's tough but I see the social media comments she gets. We both have whack jobs following us. Hers are a lot more vocal.

One trend I've noticed the last year in our business might. might, help some of us on the backside of our TV news careers.

Fewer good applicants.

My friends who are now news directors say they're seeing this everywhere. Simply fewer people coming out of J-school who want to be teevee reporters. We are generally a "second job" for a reporter/ "third job" for an anchor but we've hired some reporters for a first job who came highly recommended from one of the top schools or from their internships. That's worked out 50/50 - some have racked up awards and moved on. Others couldn't report a simple city council meeting.

Yet the talent pool for reporters, oh sorry, I mean MMJs and producers has been dreadful. Young people know our industry is a dying industry. Why live on peanuts with a college degree to do ag reports in small market USA when you can travel the world, take 2,700 selfies a day from multiple continents, chronicle your dating life in Chicago or NYC and make 130k while living at home? #crossthread