Requiem for TV's Gender Gap?

By WILLIAM A. HENRY III

A Kansas City anchorwoman's legal victory prompts debate

When Judy Woodruff became a TV news anchor in Atlanta in 1972, the station ordered her to cut her shoulder-length hair. Mary Alice Williams was urged in 1979 by NBC's New York station to change her eye color with tinted contact lenses. Dorothy Reed was forbidden in 1980 by ABC's San Francisco station to plait her hair in corn rows. The three women, and many of their counterparts, cheered last week when Christine Craft, 38, won a $500,000 damage verdict against the former owners of a Kansas City station, KMBC, that dropped her as an anchor in 1981. Craft charged that Station Manager R. Kent Replogle told her she was "too old, unattractive and not deferential enough to men."

At first glance, the decision seemed a major victory for the proposition that women deserve to be treated as more than set decoration: a jury of four women and two men found that Metromedia, Inc.* had defrauded Craft by hiring her as a journalist and then attempting to make her over as a camera presence. The jurors also recommended that U.S. District Judge Joseph Stevens find Metromedia guilty of sex discrimination. Said Jury Foreman Kenneth Green: "We hope we have helped women in broadcasting." The case took on a symbolic importance for women's groups, who contributed to help Craft pay her attorney, Dennis Egan. Said Christine Lund, 39, an anchor at Los Angeles' KABC: "This proves that the public is sharper than I ever thought. The case may be appealed, but you cannot unring this bell."

TV executives and law scholars, however, contend that Craft's victory reflected unusual circumstances, and that it will have limited impact on stations' legal freedom to change personnel. The importance of the case, they said, was that it prompted ethical debate about TV's treatment of women and other issues: the rise of show-business values and market research over news judgment; the role of consultants in shaping a newscast's style, cast and content; the concept of anchors as personalities rather than reporters. Those trends started in local news, but are spreading to the networks, according to some reporters. A CBS correspondent complains: "One executive refers to what we do as 'info-tainment.' "

Concerns about appearance and manner may have a place in a medium that uses personalities to attract viewers to the news. But TV executives around the country said that in Craft's case, the show business considerations were insensitively handled and tinged with sexism. Said General Manager Monte Newman of Chicago's WMAQ: "The people in charge were incredibly dumb." When Craft negotiated with KMBC for the $35,000 job in 1980, she told the station's management that she had resented being "made over" as a bee-stung-lipped, bleached blond for a previous post as a CBS network sports reporter in 1977-78. KMBC'S management assured Craft that it would not seek to change her image, then turned her over to Media Associates of Dallas for training in makeup and hairstyling; the station also set up a "clothing calendar" to ensure that she would wear each outfit only once every three weeks. By contrast, few cosmetic demands were made of Craft's male coanchor, Scott Feldman, 34, who had been there longer and was paid $9,000 more. After Manager Replogle told Craft she would be demoted to reporter, she quit to return to anchoring (at $25,000 a year) at KEYT in Santa Barbara.

During Craft's eight-month tenure, KMBC'S news ratings rose from second place to first in the six-station market, which is the nation's 27th largest. Nonetheless, the station hired consultants to test her appeal further. Perhaps the most damaging evidence against Metromedia was an audio tape of a research discussion in which Steve Meacham, a Media Associates employee, said to a group of local viewers, "Let's spend 30 seconds destroying Christine Craft. Is she a mutt?"

The TV tradition of hiring mostly young, comely women for reporters or anchors started long before consultants-- in the early 1950s era of untutored "weather girls"--and is shared by the networks. TV executives say they are only bowing to audience tastes. Admits ABC News Vice President David Burke: "Women in this business face pressures that men do not, but those pressures often stem from the public." They are surely most acute on women over 40. Says Anchor Wendy Tokuda, 33, of San Francisco's KPIX: "Male broadcast journalists grow more distinguished and credible, but the women just get older." There are notable survivors: Barbara Walters, 51, of ABC; Pauline Frederick, who retired in 1974 at age 65 from NBC; Reporter Taris Savell, 52, of Pensacola's WEAR; Commentator Dorothy Fuldheim of Cleveland's WEWS, who has signed another three-year contract at age 90. But as CBS White House Correspondent Lesley Stahl, 41, contends, "It is generally uncharted waters whether women can age on camera."

The issue, however, may be shifting from sex to age. Says Reporter Zoe Levin, 36, of Kansas City's WDAF: "Today the emphasis on cosmetics applies to men as well.'' At the networks, some older male correspondents, including CBS Veterans George Herman, 63, and Robert Pierpoint, 58, have been pushed into secondary roles. When ABC and NBC realign their evening newscasts next month, the average age of the three lead network anchormen will be a relatively youthful 46. Says ABC News President Roone Arledge: "It is a fact of life--when your face is out there as your byline, cosmetic factors are involved." Arledge's attitude seems ingrained in TV executives across the country, and in audiences. Even Crusader Craft does not expect much change. She sums up: "This is a victory for civil rights, but I have no illusions that it will make a huge difference in TV news." -- By William A. Henry III.

Reported by Miriam Pepper/Kansas City, with other bureaus

*Metromedia was also hit with a $1.5 million sex-discrimination suit by a Boston station employee who was demoted after taking a maternity leave, and a two-day, 22% drop in the value of its stock following an article criticizing its accounting practices in Barron's, the business magazine.

With reporting by Miriam Pepper This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.