Tuesday, June 12, 2007

Anchorwoman Wanted



No experience in news required but must have DD cups in bras.

Now you think that I have finally fallen off the tightrope between so-so sanity and honest insanity. But you are wrong. I'm no more insane than I ever am. This is how a Texas television station has decided to address the job specifications of a female newsreader:

Some might say KYTX president and general manager Phil Hurley has decided to pull his station's news ratings out of the toilet by stepping into the gutter.

The Tyler, Texas, CBS affiliate will premier its latest news anchor next week – Lauren Jones, an actress, bikini model and former World Wrestling Entertainment wrestler with no journalism training or experience.

While Hurley admits his decision to hire Jones will attract criticism, he sees it as a smart business move.

"We think this will accelerate our growth and that people will see this as entrepreneurial," he told the Longview, Texas, News-Journal.

Jennifer Pozner addresses the feminist points about this experiment. It really is like spitting in the eyes of women who actually work in the field. It denigrates their work and their experience. It makes the assumption that women are on television in order to be eyecandy for guys. In an odd way this is not that different from the radical Islamists' argument that women shouldn't be on television because they are eyecandy.

Why not have naked men read the news? I bet quite a few women would check that one out.