Critic: Networks Are Going Backward on Diversity

Will "Save Katie" become a feminist rallying cry?

Time's James Poniewozik thinks we should be concerned about what it means if, as has been widely speculated, Katie Couric leaves CBS Evening News after the presidential election.

"Should Hillary pull the election out, the first female President could be sworn in just in time to say goodbye to the first solo female anchor," he writes.

"It should be embarrassing that presidential politics -- which gave us all those dead white guys in your wallet -- is moving forward as TV news is moving back. Our leaders are more diverse than our anchors."

Political correctness aside, Poniewozik says the networks have a genuine self-interest in hiring more black and female talking heads: "If they were not largely fronted by white men, they would have been less vulnerable to the uncomfortable images of the media's boys ganging up on Hillary in the earlier debates or of largely white TV personalities piling on Obama about Jeremiah Wright in the much-trashed ABC debate and before."

By the way, Poniewozik's story isn't online yet; that link above is to his Time.com blog.