Open Letter to Maureen Dowd

Dear Maureen Dowd: This morning your New York Times Op/Ed piece whines that TV news is a man’s world and NBC never considered using a woman to replace Tom Brokaw. Well, yeah...news show anchors predominately are men. But have you considered one important factor? Women newspersons are women. They are annoying. They have annoying hair. They have annoying voices. Women newspersons make normally sane and reasoned people want to slap them upside the head. Apparently, CNN has tried to lead the way by using women newspersons. It doesn’t work. Take Paula Zahn (anywhere...please!). If there is someone else in the newsbiz with a snottier, more supercilious, haughtier attitude, I have yet to see her/him. If I never see another shot of Paula Zahn’s legs it will be fine by me. Kitty Pilgrim cannot hold a candle to Lou Dobbs even though she is his sub of choice. She’s uptight, gives the impression she is just a newsreader not a news anchor. She’s prim and prissy. I don’t like prim and prissy. I have no confidence in Kitty Pilgrim. She can’t confront a topic or a person, she just gets stiffer, primmer, prissier. Judy Woodruff has been around long enough to inspire confidence but her hair won’t allow it. It’s impossible not to get caught up in meditations on new hair-dos, ruminations on her hair problem--head-wraps, shaved-head, hats. Men may have bad hair, they may go bald, they may even pay $25,000 for a rug, but men’s hair does not pull your eyes out of your head in awed disbelief. And speaking of which, the queen of I-can’t-hear-a-thing-she-says-for-looking-at-her-hair is Christianne Amanpour. A couple of months ago she seemed to be wearing a lampshade on her head. NBC’s Katie Couric has been described as “cute”. I don’t want cute if another 9/11 happens. I don’t want silly, or frivolous, or sentimental. I don’t want high-pitched voices that make me turn down the TV volume although that never helps. Women try too hard. I don’t care if it’s not their fault. I don’t care if they are in an impossible position in the news business. I don’t care if they are expected to do human interest stories that men won’t do as well as hard news stories. I simply don’t care that it’s tough being a woman in the newsbiz. Women haven’t made it as news anchors because they are women I don’t want to hear about news anchors’ cancer, broken marriages, sick husbands, birthings, efforts to get pregnant. Just the news. That’s what I want. I want the news delivered in a nice even tone with a little humor and no screeching. No high-decibal drama, please. No over-hyped women’s point of view in a hard world crap. Just the news delivered by a guy. That's what I want. It’s not my fault, Ms Dowd, that I don’t like women news anchors. It’s their fault. They are women. They may not be able to help it, but that’s not my fault either. Being a woman is not a flaw to be overcome in the TV news field. It’s a fact that can’t be overcome. It no doubt is true that the powers-that-be in the news media are men and they are prejudiced against women. So am I. Maybe the moguls just don’t like women in anchor positions. I don’t like them either. I don’t like men gynecologists. So?