sexism and the media

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/01/09/opinion/09DOWD.html
New York Times/Op-Ed
January 9, 2002
Just a Little Honest
By MAUREEN DOWD

"A gaffe," Michael Kinsley once observed, "occurs not when a
politician lies, but when he tells the truth."

CNN made a terrible gaffe over the weekend and told a terrific
truth.

It was refreshing to see somebody finally spit out what we all know
but what the networks go to ludicrous lengths to deny: They hire and
promote news stars based on looks and sex appeal.

About 10 times over the weekend, CNN ran an ad promoting Paula Zahn's
new morning show, "American Morning," with a male announcer purring,
"Where can you find a morning news anchor who's provocative,
super-smart, oh yeah, and just a little sexy?"  The word sexy then
flared onto the screen, accompanied by a noise that sounded like a
zipper unzipping.

The ad's naked truth stunned television insiders. "If they're sexy, so
be it," said Don Hewitt, executive producer of "60 Minutes." "It ain't
necessary to say it. It's undignified.  "Whatever Paula brings to
television," he said, "it's despite the fact that she's nicely put
together. It diminishes a first-rate woman journalist to label her
sexy. Why doesn't CNN say that Wolf Blitzer is sexy? He must be sexy
to somebody."

On Monday the embarrassed CNN chief, Walter Isaacson, yanked the
spot. "It was a bad mistake," he said. "I'm really sorry. The
promotion department didn't get it cleared. You can say sexy
about a man but not about a woman."

A CNN spokesman explained that the noise was not supposed to be a
zipper sound, but more like a needle scratching across an LP record --
a sound effect sometimes used on "Ally McBeal."  CNN's bitter rival,
Fox News, which fired Ms. Zahn in September when it learned she was
being wooed by CNN, immediately began crowing. In the absence of the
usual Washington back-stabbing, Fox vs. CNN is the most entertaining
contest going. The Fox anchor Brit Hume declared on air that the sexy
ad was "a first in the history of television news."

Mr. Hume said off air he thought that in the old days CNN made news
the star. But now, beset by lively cable competition and Ashleigh
Banfield types, the network has to make stars the news.  "TV news is a
peculiar hybrid medium with many imperatives," Mr.  Hume said. "And
attractive people, alas, is one of them."  As TV news has succumbed to
glossy entertainment values, the executives in TV don't think so
differently from executives in movies.

As Glenn Close recently told The Chicago Tribune, Hollywood always
wants "the same old thing - young, sexy. I always have an image that
there must be some room somewhere full of men saying," to paraphrase
Ms. Close, "Would you date her?" "Yeah, I'd date her." "O.K., let's
cast her."

The BBC's 56-year-old veteran news correspondent Kate Adie created a
stir in October when she said TV bosses in England were more
interested in the "shape of your leg" than professional
credentials. Calling herself a "terribly old-fashioned old trout," she
said the modern crop of BBC presenters had "cute faces and cute
bottoms and nothing else in between."  American network executives
have also been hiding their preference for the visual over the
cerebral in plain sight over the years, as they paraded a bunch of
glamorous cookie-cutter blondes, pretty conservative pundettes with
gams longer than their résumés and dishy anchor studs across the
screen, all the while pretending that it was more important for their
journalists to be hard on the news than easy on the eyes.

The irrepressible Roger Ailes, head of Fox News, is chortling,
declaring that in its "desperation" to add some Fox-like foxiness to
its more staid network, CNN overreached.

He said he thought the ad was due to the influence of Jamie Kellner,
the Turner Broadcasting boss who came over in March from running the
WB network, where he used to oversee "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and
"Felicity." He does not buy Mr. Kellner's plea of ignorance.

"This has got Kellner's fingerprints, palm prints and face prints on
it," Mr. Ailes said. "Nobody in the history of CNN in Atlanta would
have used that zipper sound effect or the word 'sexy.' This is
Hollywood. This is the way they promote a new sitcom. This is Kellner
saying, 'I made "Buffy the Vampire Slayer." I can make Paula Zahn.'"