Andy Rooney doesn’t like women as sideline reporters at NFL games. (What, you expected different from Andy?) He made his comments on The Boomer Esiason Show last week.
As if often the case, Andy’s takes the nugget of an idea way too far. He’s right that, for better or worse, the trend to female sideline reporters the last few years is largely driven by producers who want to give young male viewers eye candy. (Melissa Stark…vroom vroom.) Notice it’s the sideline reporters — who actually get seen during the game — who are now often women, not the disembodied voices in the telecast booth. It’s just like the men and women who get to anchor local TV news because they’re cuties, not because they’re evoking the ghost of Edward R. Murrow.
But that said, some of women are actually quite good. Andrea Kremer rocks, for instance. Bonnie Bernstein knows what’s up. Leslie Visser‘s lost a step, but she’s still legit. And Suzy Kolber pulls off the smokin’-hot-smart-jock thing very well.
Unfortunately, dear sweet Melissa, while welcome to visit crabwalk.com HQ anytime she likes, knows about as much football as my grandmother. Linda Cohn‘s a ditz, Jill Arrington‘s completely without clue, and Jillian Barberie‘s an idiot.
Just about the only reasonable thing Andy Rooney said last week was in response to the criticism over his sexist comments. “What are they going to do, fire me from The Boomer Esiason Show?” Good point, Andy.
2 thoughts on “ladies of sports journalism”
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Ha! That Andy. No really, he gives the Greatest Generation a bad name, but does have a point. It’s hard to take some of the women seriously when they look like they got lost on their way to the cheerleading corner (that wasn’t a stereotype or anything). Plus, it’s different if you have a woman commentating on, say, basketball, because chances are she’s played seriuosly before, even professionally, and maybe she’s even coached. But that kind of multi-faceted experience hasn’t been afforded to women in football — yet. We have to start somewhere. But the dynamic of women + TV = have to be pretty, will always be there (and that’s a glass ceiling of a different level all together ..).
I thought his most telling comment was in support of women sideline reporters: Eric Dickerson … yes, the women on the sidelines are attractive but on the flip side, we give credence to lot of ex-jocks or coaches who get a leg up in getting hired but are flat out horrible. Bill Walsh, etc … but frankly, 90% of the people covering sports are not that good – look at Brent Musberger, the guys been at it for 30 years and he’s barely better than the average high school sports announcer.
Melissa Stark is no better or worse than Arman Kitane (okay, I butchered his last name) on CBS – all sideline reporters are like sponsored game summary updates – creates the illusion of motion when nothing is going on because they think we’re morons – that we need constant and different visual motion.