Thursday, December 20, 2007

TV Anchors & Iowa

There is twitter amongst the media and bloggers about television news anchor persons. Since I used to be one so may years ago I will chime in too.

Channel 7's Big 7 News circa 1972(Sideburns were in!)

TV anchor persons on the news casts are the ones who get to lead off the news hours or half hours with the latest sex story or car accident. They are usually very nice looking folks, no fat people allowed, and they are under 40 years of age. Well, Dick Knipfing at Channel 13 is the exception to that rule. He is the guy that originally hired me back in 1966 as a news photographer. I then discovered that I could write and read the news too. I was supposedly the first Hispanic anchor in the market and I was honored to do it. Especially since back in those days we covered news rather than tabloid kinds of stuff. We covered the legislature and its issues and the political races and their candidates stand on the issues. Ah, the good old days. (Well, I have to admit we were pretty much into car wrecks too.)

I think it is a little sad that the three anchor women who have left and were all Hispanic are not being replaced with other Hispanics. If I were the station managers I would take one more look at the demographics of this market to see who lives here.

On the subject of Iowa I will be leaving in about a week to help Governor Richardson's effort there. I have never been to Iowa. It is the only state I have not been too so I can mark that off my map. I am looking forward to blogging from there and will take lots of pictures of the process. It should be fun.

1 comment:

nmlinks said...

Channel 13 (spokeschannel for the GOP - one of several) at least has Deanna Sauceda, Kim Vallez & Jessica Garate. They could use more Hispanic male anchors.