Broadcasting & Cable’s Anne Becker writes about the pressure of the TV news industry for female news talent who are over a certain age…

Even in an HD world, network news executives maintain that they do not discriminate on the basis of age.

“No one should be under the illusion that cable news networks are trying to attract 25-year-olds by putting on 25-year-olds. That would be a foolhardy effort,” Klein says. “Our stock and trade is our authority, experience, trustworthiness and objectivity. Those qualities develop over time, and you’d be shooting yourself in the foot to simply go for youth and looks at the expense of ability.”

CBS News Senior VP Marcy McGinnis says the network is proud of its record. “It’s important not to get defensive about hiring people who are going to move through the ranks,” she says. “I don’t want all 40-year-olds any more than I want all 30-year-olds or all 70-year-olds.”

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Hal Boedeker of the Orlando Sentinel writes about yesterday’s Libby indictment coverage (and throws a chop block at CNN’s The Situation Room)…

A lot of the commentary fell into predictably partisan ruts. On MSNBC, conservative Pat Buchanan saw good news because Rove wasn’t indicted and praised Bush’s comments on Libby as brilliant. On CNN, Clinton administration veteran Paul Begala said Bush needed to say more before hopping on a chopper to Camp David.
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Jose Cardenas in the St. Petersberg Times writes about the Leauge of United Latin American Citizens dispute with CNN and how Lou Dobbs and the cutting away from Florida Governer Jeb Bush’s comments in Spanish play a role…

While other stations carried Bush’s remarks in both English and Spanish, CNN broke away when the governor began to speak in Spanish.

Cazares believes that showed disregard for Spanish speakers in Florida, and said he plans to write a protest letter to the network. He urges LULAC members to do the same.

Cazares also wants to bring attention to a boycott that LULAC, which he has rejoined, launched against the network last summer.

LULAC members think CNN is hostile toward immigrants because one of its reporters, host Lou Dobbs, has spoken regularly against illegal immigrants on his program Lou Dobbs Tonight.

He’s not on cable news but Al Roker is the only one really responding to critics of hurricane coverage… (via FTVLive)

Stop whining. Just because your medium is irrelevant when it comes to a breaking story like a hurricane doesn’t mean you have to trash others who are out there covering it.

I am in no way comparing the two, but common sense would tell a person…don’t go to a war zone. There are bombs and people with guns and danger. Yet, we send good, brave journalists into harms way every day to cover a story.

I’m not a fan of these weather “stunts”. But at least Roker is a meteorologist. It’s his job. But at the same time comparing covering a hurricane by sticking yourself out in an environment like that isn’t nearly at all like covering a war.
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