One thing you hear old people grumble about is how things have changed.
“When I was 10 years old we walked 50 miles in the snow to get to school.”

Right.
That was then and this is now so let’s move on.

Wait a minute…
I got something to grumble about first.

I’ve kinda stopped watching the news over the past couple of years.

That’s quite a statement from someone who has over 10-thousand radio and TV newscasts to my credit and lived and breathed that stuff for 20 years.

There’s a balance problem and I’m not referring to “both sides of the story” type-of-thing.

I’m talking about male and female.

Watching Channel 4 (KITV) is almost like watching The View or wandering into one of the wife’s gatherings with her friends.

It’s way too female.

That’s not a sexist BS attitude about ability.
It’s a comment on presentation.

Channel Two isn’t any better on the weekends.

It’s about balance.

Thirty years ago it was all male and that was just as bad.

On the mainland they carefully staff their anchor desk with people of different races.
The idea is to reflect the community, and that’s the way it should be.

Using that formula, KITV must think Hawaii is 98-percent female.

I have a good idea why this is happening but I’m not interested in starting a news director gender war.

But I know what I’m talking about and those in TV news today will know I’m right if they back up a bit and honestly think about it.

Women make many of the spending decisions in the home and sponsors like big female rating numbers.

Plus there’s this idea that some babe on the anchor desk will attract male viewers.
Not really.

None of that should never sway any newsroom decision – but it happens whether anyone will admit it or not.

Putting guys only on the sports desk is just as biased as keeping women off the anchor desk 30 years ago.

And to be honest, I’ve never been a fan to dual anchors anyway.

A person can get whiplash jumping from one anchor to another unless it’s structured carefully, which rarely happens.

It also serves no useful purpose other than to say “we have two people” telling you what’s going on.

In case you don’t like one of our anchors, hey, we have another.

Is this going to change?
Of course not – at least not for a while.

There’s a lot more in play here than I mentioned.
And that makes me grumpy.