The other night, while
listening to the voice of yet another high-pitched, nasal, female
newscaster, my husband suddenly snapped: "Pauline Frederick, where
are you now that we need you?"
For those of you too
young to remember her, Pauline Frederick was a pioneer in broadcast
journalism, one of a very few female news commentators. Her extraordinary
career stretched from 1939-1980. She did a stint as a UN reporter;
she worked as an anchorwoman for ABC and for PBS. She was a woman
of formidable intelligence, a reporter whose careful, calm delivery
bespoke knowledge of her subjects, and integrity in reporting
them. She had a beautifully modulated voice and her diction was
precise without being fussy. The latter well-remembered attributes
were what triggered my husband's snarl. Sometimes it seems as
if the people who hire women for television news desks have tin
ears. The least they could do is to send those young women out
for voice lessons.
When I was about 12,
I was made to take speech lessons because I spoke very rapidly
and sloppily. I remember my teacher grabbing the sides of my rib
cage and saying: "You must breathe to support the voice! Don't
let your chest rise; feel your ribs expand out to the side!" She
maintained stoutly that it's possible to lower the register of
every voice, if only one learns to breathe right and "relax the
instrument, child!" My diction improved as I discovered how to
slow down, and I soon learned to escape my teacher's fury by carefully
articulating things like the second "t" in "twenty" and by not
gulping a quick 'n' at the end of words ending in "ing." As for
nasality, she would croon: "Open the throat. Feel the vowel in
your vocal chords, not in your nose." Of course my French teacher
kept urging us to do the exact opposite, pinching the bridge of
her nose and crying: "Feel the 'inh' vibrating up here, girls!"
- but that's another story. In any event, I was lucky to learn
early on how to control and project my voice.
There are probably
plenty of reasons that TV newswomen tend to have shrill voices.
Lack of experience plays a part. Excitement or stage fright can
both translate as tension that sends voices even higher. After
all, most of our newswomen are very young. The tendency to pair
older, male anchormen with pretty young women is almost universal.
I will concede that TV has done a good job of hiring women of
color or of differing ethnicity. It's much easier to find racial
diversity among women newscasters, I think, than among male newscasters.
It seems to me that
what's really missing is female newscasters who are over 40. Once
they hit that magic mark, they are relegated to interview shows,
like Barbara Walters, or TV news magazines like "60 Minutes" or
"Dateline NBC."
I mean no disrespect
to those very accomplished women, but I can't help noting that
not a one of them has let her hair go honestly gray.
The other day, I watched
as Soledad O'Brien interviewed a newswoman who had delivered one
newscast bald. She had been treated for cancer, and during her
chemotherapy and radiation treatments had been wearing a wig to
disguise the fact that her hair was falling out. When she finally
finished the treatments, she shaved off what was left of her hair,
and announced to her employers her intention to appear bald on
screen. To their credit, they were supportive. To her credit,
it was a one-time appearance because, she said: "If I continued
to appear on screen bald, my baldness itself would become news,
and detract from the news I was delivering." Her single appearance
was, she said, so that her audience would know what she had been
through and that she was now all right. For her interview and
for all future newscasts, she wore her wig.
O'Brien's comment on
all this was revealing. She remarked that she was surprised that
the producers had allowed the episode, because in her experience
they were always saying things like: "You know, you really need
to wear your hair ______" (fill in the blank: longer, shorter,
lighter, darker, curlier, pulled back, put up, etc).
I can't help believing
that that is the reason we see people like Ms. Walters or Ms.
Pauley going blonder and blonder as the years go by. Nothing points
up ageing skin like a really dark hair dye, which some people
(male as well as female) use to cover the gray. Beauticians tell
us that as our skin tones fade with age, we need softer color
in both makeup and hair. So the makeup people and the television
producers decide that older women need paler hair, and indeed
"faded blonde" fills that bill. It is hard for me to believe that
the fake, all-blonde color is an improvement to a woman's looks,
however, when Mother Nature provides in the natural graying process
both texture and coloration that are far more interesting.
Of course you'll have
noticed that Dan Rather and Tom Brokaw are allowed to go naturally
gray without a squeak. In fact the gray is probably thought to
enhance their punditry.
It's certainly every
woman's right to wear her hair exactly as she wants, and there
are a great many of us who prefer NOT to go gray. But somehow
when you can watch the news almost anywhere in the country and
never see gray haired woman, you've got to wonder that they have
all chosen to color their hair. Have the producers caused these
women to fear for their jobs if they go gray?
Is news that is delivered
by good gray grandfather figures more reliable than news delivered
by good gray grandmother figures? Do the psychologists tell us
that we prefer listening to older men over listening to older
women? Has anybody tested the theory? Has anybody ever stood up
and told those producers that looking young isn't nearly as important
as being able to deliver good reportage? A good voice, a good
mind, and a certain photogenic quality would surely be sufficient
to draw viewers. I
know lots of older women who are every bit as photogenic now as
when they were twenty.
My great grandmother
was beautiful at 20. She was also beautiful at 92: different,
but still beautiful, and the camera loved her. We have several
photographic studies of her done by one of her daughter's neighbors,
a professional photographer who found the old lady fascinating
and lovely. Being photogenic, it seems to me, depends on several
variables. Certainly beauty and good bones don't hurt. Neither
does self-confidence. But often the truly photogenic seem to have
a certain inner light: a look in the eyes, perhaps, or a great
smile. In any event one needn't be young and firm and generating
sexual heat to be considered beautiful, no matter what the powers
in the TV world tell us. Their distaste for wrinkled skin and
gray hair is a sad comment on their limited imaginations.
One producer to whom
I spoke seemed to feel that an older woman could not possibly
have the energy to keep up with younger reporters. I have to question
this, since most of the older women I know run circles around
their own children. Not only do they have energy; they have experience
and focus, and are not as likely to waste energy haring off on
a tangent. Neither are they as likely to be distracted from their
professions as are younger women who are still dealing with learning
how to run a household, have a career, and possibly manage small
children as well.
From all I have seen
and heard, younger reporters on television qualify more as "readers"
of the news. Gathering news or chasing down a story seems less
and less the function of a newscaster, these days. Reading the
news on television must look like a glamorous job to all those
young women who are majoring in broadcast journalism in our colleges.
I hope that someone has told them that when they hit 40, they
will be hanging on if not by their fingernails, by their plastic
surgeons and Clairol bottles.
As for me, I would
gladly forsake my usual nightly news program to tune in any station
that dares to place an older, gray-haired woman in an anchorperson's
seat. Until then, we'll hold dear the memory of Pauline Frederick
(although she, too, did not go really gray), and hope that her
accomplishments will one day inspire the powers that be to grow
brave and hire an unimproved older woman.
