TVSquad

While viewership continues to slip and all that "Katie is leaving after the election" talk still swirls, it looks like the industry actually likes her show.

The CBS Evening News won the Edward R. Murrow Award for Best Newscast from the Radio Television News Directors Association the other night. ABC won the most awards, including Best Overall, Documentary, Hard news, Spot News Coverage, and Videography. Not really sure what the difference is between Best Newscast and Best Overall, but maybe Best Overall combines all facets of a TV network's news division while Best Newscast just focuses on the 30 minute nightly show that the network does. Either way it's something I'm sure you're going to see in ads for The CBS Evening News.

CBS News also won for Best Web Site (I'd link to the full list of awards but the RTNDA site seems to be down right now.)

[via TV Newser]

Men are becoming the minority in newsrooms across the country. According to the Radio-Television News Directors Association, 42% of anchors are men. That's down from 46% in 1996. One of the reasons? The ultimate goal for many male journalism students is in sports. But, sports is a dying genre at local news stations across the country. Another reason, stated in an article in the Boston Globe, is that anchoring isn't really as manly as it used to be back in the days of Walter Kronkite and Edward R. Murrow. They were a breed of anchor who came across as tough on government corruption, whereas anchors these days are pretty boys who are more even-tempered and less aggressive. News readers, really.

While it's nice to see that women are kickin' butt in television, it's also a sad commentary on the role of the anchorman in our society and in news in general. These days the anchors are hired as personalities, not news gatherers.