Letters to the Editor
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Christiane Amanpour is my top candidate
Christiane Amanpour is my top candidate for network anchor, but if Katie Couric is selected, she'll prove her graviatas, or not. Elizabeth Vargas is making the case for women too, even if -- as is too often the case -- her chance to prove herself arrived by accident. Also, although I haven't been following the news anchor wars closely, it seems that Vargas' pregnancy leave is covered more as an opportunity for the job to be taken away from her -- rather than as evidence of her unreliability.
Back to Amanpour, I admire her as an intelligent, well-informed serious news journalist who is willing to ask tough questions and tell the truth, even when it is not politically correct. She always seems well prepared whether reporting the news or conducting an interview, is willing to go where the news is, and has demonstrated moral and physical courage. Still, I believe Couric too would show she has what it takes, if she accepts the job. She'll be given a hard time at first, but as with most women, she'll show she is more than capable and has the requisite gravitas -- a word that can be attributed to a woman as easily as to a man.
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Gravitas
If Katie wants to learn about gravitas, she should ask Keifer Sutherland :-)
Seriously, though - when I think female broadcast journalists and gravitas (which happens *all* the time, of course), Christiane Amanpour is the only name that immediately comes to mind. Does anyone else come close?
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All of the Reporters on NPR
...ooze gravitas. And not the bullshit, fatherly old-school network anchor gravitas, either.
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The Daily Show is the only news show worth watching
Who really gives a shit who sits behind a chair and reads a TelePrompTer full of slanted blurbs that have little relationship to reality, let alone the news? Is it a victory for anyone when most TV news is utter banality? Occasionally The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer gets it right with 10+ minute segments (and then they kiss David Brooks's spotty arse and ruin the previous 50 minutes). And NPR reporters of late don't have gravitas, or truthiness, or even a modicum of journalistic credibility. They sold out long ago.
For what they pay a single anchor they could actually hire a cadre of real reporters and actually cover the news. I stopped watching years ago.
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Gravitas doesn't matter. Hotness does
News is about ratings. Jennings, Brokaw and Rather were all basically actors. Rather is a moron. Jennings never even got through high school. I don't know about Brokaw. They got the gig because they were able to act like the audience's fantasy of an anchorman.
A female anchor is only going to get ratings if she's hot. Sorry. Couric is an ewok, and an obvious ninny. Chung is a sleazebag and a Kewpie doll -- not hot, not smart.
But Elizabeth Vargas. She has the sexiest eyes, and along with that mouth, you can just tell from watching her that she's thinking very dirty thoughts. I think she can see me through the television. She'll do beautifully, especially once she gets away from that tool Stossel.
Other disgraceful television types: Barbara Walters -- the quintessential emotionally vampirish Jewish grandmother, who's beyond ancient.
Diane Sawyer -- a televised Stepford Wife. She sounds the part, thanks to a deep voice, but painfully stupid and superficial.
Mike Wallace -- about as sleazy as they get, and looks like a statue from Easter Island.
Larry King -- ditto. He's been married, what, nine times?
Stone Phillips -- get this -- has a Yale Philosophy degree, but on camera he comes across as an escaped mental patient. He has one facial expression, and about three gestures, which he just repeats ... and repeats ... and repeats.
You know who would be great? Andre Braugher, that guy from Homicide. Now that's gravitas. Let's skip the Let's Pretend This is Journalism schtick, and just get a real actor.
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Tyler, try your left hand when you watch the news...
...so it feels like someone else, for a change.
Also, it wouldn't hurt to turn up the sound on Ms. Vargas after you're done. You might learn something "post-coital."
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Katie Couric is a menace.
Perhaps the greatest sin of Katie Couric (among many) is the fact that she has allowed and encouraged the confusion of fluff with actual news. Some complain that Couric slants to the left in her rare interviews of actual newsmakers; I would respond that it is her actions rather than her words that have set the agenda for America. By allowing a morning "news" show to become consumed with celebrity interviews, cooking segments, and demonstrations of grinning news anchors clowning with Olympic athletes, Couric permits America to quit caring about news that really does affect us.
She is attributed to have great influence over America. What has she spent her journalistic capital on, though? I don't count the colonoscopy - - advocating that Americans find out if they are sick is hardly taking a stand. If she really has power, she should use it to say "no" to stories that, were they run in newspapers, would be on page 6 of the "Lifestyles" section. Every puff piece is broadcast in the place of and at the expense of hard news. Viewers are not challenged, and are not encouraged to learn more about how decisions are made at the top to affect men and women at the bottom.
And Couric has allowed this, profited hugely from it, and amassed her so-called "power" from this trend. Edward R. Murrow and Katie Couric cannot possibly share the same profession.
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Amy Goodman would be a great news anchor
President Clinton called into her show just to promote the Democrat’s Get Out the Vote drive. But she didn't let him get away with waltzing onto her show and then waltzing off after meeting the needs of party promotion. She kept asking him controversial questions about topics like the massacres in East Timor and the death penalty (not wasting time on Lewinski) until he ended up talking for something like twenty minutes. The President then had the gall to complain to her that she was being disrespectful for asking him questions.
The most powerful man in the world complained about her like she physically kept him from hanging up the phone.
We need more reporters that remember the President is just another public servant. Amy is a news anchor worth watching on Democracy Now!