the kicker

TV News Vets

December 1, 2008

“In Hard Times for TV Anchors, Trusted Older Faces Fade Out,” reports the New York Times‘ Brian Stelter today, pointing to a number of longtime local TV news anchors in cities like Denver, Boston, Chicago and Houston who have been laid off (or otherwise departed) in the past year. Demonstrating that it is perhaps impossible to write an article about television news without somewhere employing the word “gravitas,” I direct you to the 18th of 26 paragraphs:

Many stations– and viewers– still place a premium on the gravitas that older anchors provide. But confronted by the era of always-available news and information on the Internet, local stations are being forced to rethink their mission.

Also rethinking? One TV news veteran who will be let go next month, Ernie Bjorkman of KWGN in Denver, has been studying to become a vet of another sort. Writes Stelter: “Presciently, Mr. Bjorkman… started taking veterinary technician classes two years ago, acting on a decades-old dream of working with animals.”

Liz Cox Barrett is a writer at CJR.