Tag Archives: Katie Couric

BBC Accused of Ageism for Trading “Older” Female Stars for Newer Models

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According to the Mail Online, UK’s Education Secretary, Michael Gove has accused the BBC of ageism, saying that he’d rather watch Selina Scott (left) or AbFab‘s Joanna Lumley on TV than Holly Willoughby (right) or Fearne Cotton.

Many people believe that the BBC has a long record of age discrimination, the most recent incident being the firing of Countryfile‘s Miriam O’Reilly after the BBC had announced plans to “revamp” the show. O’Reilly alleges that she had been told to “be careful about those wrinkles” while on the program, and was eventually fired in favor of younger staff members. A tribunal has ruled that O’Reilly was, in fact, the victim of age discrimination and is expected to receive a £150,000 payout from the BBC, which has already apologized to her and offered her her job back.

Selina Scott herself spoke out about the BBC’s apparent age discrimination two years ago, saying even then that she lamented the lack of older female anchors and reporters on the BBC’s news channels, saying:

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Despite Not “Reinvigorating TV News,” Katie Couric’s Future is Bright

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When Katie Couric was tapped to anchor CBS Evening News, many considered it an attempt to “reinvigorate” television news.  It’s fairly evident that it wasn’t successful in the way it was perhaps intended to be (both ABC and NBC are ahead of CBS in terms of nightly news viewers).  However, Couric’s future remains bright as she has both a solid journalistic history (who could forget the infamous Tina Fey Palin interview?) and has tapped into new directions such as her webshow @katiecouric. Yup, perhaps the time for “anchorwomen” truly has come.

From New York Magazine:

This past spring, CBS News president Sean McManus and executive vice-president Paul Friedman discussed whether to try to bring an end to what may be the last great experiment in network news: Katie Couric, anchorwoman. Though her reported $15 million annual contract is not up until next June, one idea that was floated was for CBS to buy out the remainder of Couric’s contract this September and put in someone new this fall, according to people familiar with the conversation. Executives were perhaps also concerned about the bad publicity that might result from a long contract negotiation with Couric, especially if she ended up leaving. McManus didn’t want to make an early move, and CBS CEO Leslie Moonves was also against moving so quickly. “Leslie is incredibly supportive,” one person familiar with Moonves’s thinking explained. “Moonves and Katie have an excellent relationship.”

One thing that I can’t help considering is who they would put in as a new anchor should Couric get the golden handshake.  It’s going to be interesting in terms of feminism no matter what; if they replace Couric with a man (and correspondent Scott Pelley is the name most often thrown around at the moment), the message is going to be that, as a woman, she couldn’t hack it.  If they put another female into the anchor chair, it’s possible that outcries of “She only got the job because …

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Rachel Maddow in the News for a GOOD High School Yearbook Pic

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Despite a pretty impressive list of accomplishments, Rachel Maddow is perhaps best known for being the first openly homosexual anchor of a prime time American news program. Oh, and she was also the first openly gay Rhodes scholarship recipient. Forget about her years of work at MSNBC, her radio show, and her doctoral degree.

Nope, she’s just that gay liberal TV lady [Ed. Note: I love Rachel Maddow and I love her show!].

And now, a recently released yearbook photo of Maddow is making the rounds. Um … it looks nothing like the Maddow familiar to the public eye. I had to do a triple take in order to meld together the blonde woman in a picture from the early nineties with the Rachel Maddow that appears on my television screen. However, what really caused me to choke on my taco dip was Thaindian News’ written coverage.

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