Tuesday, March 04, 2008

Is the TV news giving in to sexism?

Is the TV news giving in to sexism?

That’s the question asked by CNN’s Carol Costello in an interesting piece by Rich Heldenfels jn a nice piece on Page2 of today’s Beacon Journal.


Here’s just one quote:

''After we did a lot on Anna Nicole Smith, we felt dirty. We did. We had a meeting and a discussion about that, and we told ourselves . . . we were never going to do that again. And we
haven't. We do news. Even when it's not the great, interesting, political time, we do the news.''

Regarding image, she recalled recently seeing a man and woman anchoring the news. The man was in a dark suit. The woman, Costello said, ''was wearing, I swear to you, a skirt so short she did not dare uncross her legs. . . .

''I found myself unable to pay attention to what she was talking about because I was completely mesmerized by her skirt,'' said Costello. She wondered if the woman had been told by her boss to wear the skirt, or if she was simply giving in to sexism.

''Our culture seems to be saying sex is power,'' she said. Even older women, she said, have been called ''cougars,'' on the prowl for younger men. ''Desperate housewives'' still have to be sexy.

Click on the headline to read it all.

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