America’s identity-politics’ obsessed news media went back to the future Wednesday with the announcement that white male David Muir would replace Diane Sawyer as the weeknight anchor of ABC World News.
Along with white male Brian Williams at NBC and white male Scott Pelley at CBS, our progressive, forward-thinking, boundary-pushing broadcast news franchises have just completed a War on Women trifecta.
In 2006 we were all fooled into believing that at the very least the glass ceiling had been cracked with the promotion of Katie Couric to the anchor chair of the CBS Evening News.
Just three years later it looked as though the glass ceiling had been permanently shattered after Diane Sawyer stepped into the anchor chair in 2009.
Suddenly, two of three broadcast newscasts had female anchors.
The first reversal came in 2011 when Couric was booted in favor of white male Scott Pelley. The reversal is now complete with the bumping of Sawyer in favor of white male Muir.
The good news for the white male nightly news patriarchy is that our three white male anchors are all relatively young. White male Muir is only 40; white male Pelley is 56; white male Williams, 55.
At this rate, it will be at least 2025 before a woman or member of a racial minority gets a chance at the most coveted and prestigious slot in all of journalism.
White males also dominate the second most prestigious slot in all of journalism — hosting the Sunday morning news shows. White male George Stephanopoulos at ABC; white male David Gregory at NBC; old while male Bob Schieffer at CBS.
Oh, same with Late Night — white males. Young white males.
I don’t think “progressive” means what these networks think it means.