TV Newswomen, A Distinguished Minority

Their entry into the profession has been a long slog.

April 4, 2018: (Updated February 10, 2019) Before the FCC’s Sex Discrimination ruling of 1970, network broadcast journalists were almost solidly male. Now the latest polls have the percentage of women in the field as only about 20 percent.

“I was among four women CBS hired in a fit of guilt in 1971,” Connie Chung told me in 1985. “They hired every combination. Me, a nice Chinese girl, Michelle Clark, who was black, Lesley Stahl, a nice Jewish girl with blonde hair, and Sylvia Chase, a blonde shiksa.”

Of that early four, only Lesley Stahl remains, as a CBS “60 Minutes” correspondent.

Women’s gains as TV journalists have been a long slog. The pioneer was Pauline Frederick who became ABC’s first and only newswoman in 1949. She went on for years as a lone woman until Marlene Sanders joined ABC in the 1960s. Sanders went to CBS in 1978.

The most famous pioneer was Barbara Walters, who came from NBC’s Today Show in 1976 to co-anchor ABC World News. She stayed on for two years in which she was ridiculed and denigrated by the press and male peers essentially for her temerity in even taking the job. In my exclusive interviews, her first within seven months after her debut Walters revealed the price of the abuse women still face for taking what’s known as “a man’s job.”

No other woman was a network anchor for 15 years. It was not until 1993 when Connie Chung showed up as co-anchor with Dan Rather on CBS Evening News. She lasted two years.

Two other women subsequently became solo anchors. Katie Couric anchored CBS Evening News from 2006 to 2011. And Diane Sawyer anchored ABC World News from 2009 to 2014.

Since then all three networks have male anchors.

But there is one news program, the PBS NewsHour that has become a beacon for women TV journalists. Currently anchored by crack interviewer Judy Woodruff, the program broke new ground in 2013 when she and Gwen Ifill became co-anchors of the PBS NewHour.

The two, both network news veterans, and longtime friends, established for the first time a constant womens’ presence on a major nightly news broadcast.

After Gwen Ifill died in 2016, to universal grief, Judy Woodruff remains a solo anchor on this in-depth news program, where women are prominent throughout the broadcasts. While there are a good number of outstanding men correspondents on the PBS NewsHour, women are solidly present.

I am also delighted to see another pioneer, Charlayne Hunter Gault, a NewsHour correspondent from 1978 to 1977, appearing occasionally as an interviewer.

With major roles on the broadcast are Margaret Warner, foreign affairs correspondent; Lisa Desjardins, political director; Yamiche Alcindor, White House Correspondent. The program’s Politics Monday discussion, led by Woodruff, features two other journalists, Amy Walters and Tamara Keith. The program is also enhanced by the Friday opinions of David Brooks and Mark Shields, moderated by Judy Woodruff.

TV Newswomen, A Distinguished Minority - Headlining Feminism's Second Wave

First Woman TV Reporter Pauline Frederick: From “Women’s News” to UN Correspondent: Her career was conducted as free-lancer until ABC News hired her full time when she was 40. A role model for women journalists who still weren’t hired at the networks until years later, The Washington Star, 1976 — NEW February 10, 2019

1. Barbara Walters Makes a Dazzling Entrance on ABC as First Woman Anchor: The former NBC “Today” Show host is an experienced network journalist. Her interview skills are on display as she takes her seat next to her co-anchor, Harry Reasoner, The Washington Star, October 5, 1976 — NEW August 5, 2018
2. First Woman News Anchor Barbara Walters Faces Ridicule, Resentment, “Terrible Barrage of Criticism”, The Washington Star, May 9, 1977
3. Women Network Correspondents Band Together Against Sexism and Harassment: Will they ever become anchors, will they keep their jobs past their 30s and 40s? Washington Journalism Review, March 1985 and Reprinted in Cosmopolitan Magazine, July 1985
4. Irrepressible Comic, Katie Couric Also Conducts “Killer Interviews”: New NBC “Today” show co-host has friendly chats with guests but “the gloves come off” when it comes to hard-news interviews, The Washington Journalism Review, May 1992
5. There Aren’t Many Network Newswomen And Their Longevity is a Constant Concern: Youth and beauty are prized, gentlemen prefer blondes and, according to one survivor, “Middle-aged white men still do the hiring.”, RTNDA “Communicator”, October 1995
6. Number of Local TV Women Reporters and Anchors “Climb” to Eighteen in All: Their salaries are far below those of the men, and some worry about whether or not to have children. “My career is my life,” said one. “I would love to be a man and have a wife to raise my children.”, The Washington Star, June 18, 1978
7. NBC Correspondent Andrea Mitchell Also To Co-Anchor 9-Week News Series: She and Linda Ellerbee will preside over a show mostly staffed with women writers and producers. Mitchell credits two men for this anomaly. “The best people I know, men and women, are feminists,” she says. Los Angeles Times, June 30, 1984
8. Facing Each Other: “Today’s” Jane Pauley and “GMA’S Sandy Hill: One has to keep proving herself, the other is a restrained tiger. Both excel on their morning shows. The Washington Star, 1978
9. Pretty, Personal and Young, D.C. Anchorwomen Worry Nearing 30: Their salaries are $20, 000 below comparable men’s salaries. They have to be seasoned TV reporters but they must radiate beauty, too. The Washington Star, August 4, 1975
10. At 40, Pamela Hill Heads ABC’s News “Close-Up” Documentary Unit, Is No Longer a “Little Muffin”: She attributes her hard-hitting subject matter to the fact that she’s a women in what has always been a man’s profession, The Washington Star, June 8, 1979
11. She Heads Egypt’s TV: There’s Equal Pay and the Staff is 50% Women: So no, she says, she says she’s not a feminist, and besides, “We are ruled by Islamic Law”, The Washington Star, Mid 1970's
12. Pat Michell Points Out that Women Are Interested in Women, Not Rock Stars: Now a co-host with Janet Langhart on NBC’s “America Alive!” she’s had enough of playing second fiddle to a man, being sent out to do trivial pieces like getting made up on camera at Bloomingdales while he reigns alone in the studio. The Washington Star, November 26, 1978 — NEW 26 August 2018

[Section N (#127) in a collection of more than 100 newspaper articles by Judy Flander from the second wave of the Women’s Movement reflecting the fervor and ingenuity of the women who rode the wave.]