MEDIA 'Anchorman' reflects stereotype

Decades of TV anchormen have reflected cynicism from the public.
NEW YORK (AP) -- Will Ferrell's title character in "Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy" is faced with a serious female colleague for the first time. Diversity is the reason, he's told. But he thinks diversity is the name of an old wooden ship from the Civil War.
A San Diego anchorman in the '70s, Burgundy is the latest in a line of Hollywood anchormen dating to Ted Baxter of "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" (1970-77) who by turns are pompous, vain, vacuous and living by the slogan: Sincerity -- once you can fake that, the world is yours.
Since Baxter (the name of Burgundy's dog, by the way), we've seen Jim Dial of "Murphy Brown," Bill McNeal in "NewsRadio" and three cartoon favorites: Kent Brockman of "The Simpsons," Tom Tucker of "The Family Guy" and Morbo the alien in "Futurama."
"Saturday Night Live" has long lampooned anchors on its "Weekend Update." And "The Daily Show" has won a Peabody for its nightly sendup of newscasts.
Why all the attention?
The comic, unflattering characterization of anchormen recurs for several reasons, according to pop-culture observers and media mavens:
UThey're authority figures.
"Kind of like dads in sitcoms," said Jill Geisler, the first woman in the United States to become the news director of a major-market network affiliate.
"It's why very seldom principals of schools or deans of universities are presented in a good way," said Syracuse University's Robert Thompson, citing Dean Wormer in "Animal House" as a classic example.
UJournalists rate lower than even lawyers in surveys of the public's esteem.
Interestingly, however, a survey by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press shows consumers regularly turn to local news more than their local paper, network news -- or any other source. In "Anchorman," the bumbling Burgundy is a viewer favorite.
UPeople are generally more cynical.
"It is harder today to do a serious, sincere story of an anchorperson than it is to do a comedy. Could you imagine trying to pull off 'Lou Grant' today, for example, without people laughing in your face?" said Thompson, who runs Syracuse's Center for the Study of Popular Television.
"The 'journalist against the world, out to do the right thing, fighting the right fight' seems so naive to so many people that it ends up sounding square."
The last earnest attempt, the NBC series "Deadline" starring Oliver Platt, was quickly canceled after its 2000 debut.
Popular perception
Dave Tolchinsky, an associate professor of radio-TV-film at Northwestern University, thinks viewers are often wondering about the sincerity of the anchor's emotions on camera.
"The movie 'Broadcast News' made a big deal out of the fact that the William Hurt character should 'pretend' to cry," he recalled. "Now I think most people assume that anchorpeople are faking it -- faking the emotion, faking the chatter and lively banter."
One of Tolchinsky's colleagues at Northwestern, Chuck Kleinhans, suggested that women escape the same Hollywood rap as anchormen because it's generally assumed they had to work harder than a man to achieve the same level of success. Thus Christina Applegate's character in "Anchorman" is ambitious and capable.
People in TV news admit they've known a Ron Burgundy, but they maintain that such types are anomalies who quickly disappear.
Ferrell, the film's co-screenwriter, who consulted with at least five local anchormen across the country for his role, agreed.
"If anything, what we discovered was actually the opposite of what we depicted in the movie," he said. "These guys ... were very educated, very smart guys who really took pride in what they did."