6 ms·

Why most female newscasters have the same hair

57 points by rustcharm 8y ago

th0ma5 8y ago
Skimmed around for mentioning color keying but didn't find anything. That being said, I've long noticed the weird uniform of it all. And if you are on Sinclair or Fox you have to be blonde. A few years ago I was in an art and technology exhibit. One of the neater exhibits was a scrape of all the profile pictures on Yahoo personals (this was a while ago) and all the women's photos looked the same and the men's were all over the place with hats or props it was rather crazy to see. I keep thinking of peacocks whenever I remember back on it.
ThJ 8y ago
If we draw an analogy to stagecraft and "Ann Anchor" is a character from a popular play, it isn't unreasonable to expect a performer to dress up for a role. Actors sometimes go as far as losing or gaining weight or muscle mass to better fit a role. Like the theatre, television is show business. Beauty standards are narrower for women in TV because beauty standards are narrower for women period. Decades of feminism have done nothing to change the fact that being beautiful and fashionable is still far more important for women than for men. TV executives don't personally care how anchors look. They care about viewer numbers and everything you see on screen is optimised toward that. If having a particular look boosts the numbers, then they will want that look. If having two heads boosted the numbers, they'd want that too. It's no different than politics: Only the voters can be blamed for electing bad politicians.
- pimmen 8y ago
  It seems like all the arguments about hairstyles are about how important it is for the broadcaster. If it’s so important to them, how about they help foot the bill?
  - lotsofpulp 8y ago
    Presumably, because the broadcaster is able to find another employee who is willing to foot the bill.
- porlune 8y ago
  I disagree about your last statement: "Only the voters can be blamed for electing bad politicians" If someone controls which subset of choices you are allowed to pick from, and you choose the one you like the most out of those options, that first someone is still to blame for limiting your choice.
  - roenxi 8y ago
    Nobody controls who can vote for who in any functioning democracy. There are governments that are better than others at manifesting the will of the voters; I like the sound of Switzerland myself. Practically speaking, "voters" as a bloc aren't organised enough to excercise that so so you get effects where a party will develop a brand then endorse a candidate who is sufficiently aligned with that brand. This isn't some scheme foisted upon them, this is an implicit equilibrium that will be found in any democratic system. I've got long argument about why that happens that I don't want to type here, but it is hardly an undesirable outcome from the perspective of an ordinary citizen. There is an argument against systems where the mathematical equilibrium is 2 parties, but that in no way removes the responsibility of voters for outcomes. If they care, they should organise an alternative. Nothing stopping them except the fact that creating a large brand is hard.
    - taneq 8y ago
      > Nobody controls who can vote for who in any functioning democracy. You mean vote for which of the two candidates?
      - roenxi 8y ago
        Assuming you are talking about America, I am not very familiar with the situation but a quick google ([1]) suggests there were ~1,800 candidates with something like 8 different options with notable representation. Also, afaik, everyone is welcome to join a political party and scrum with the best of them to get good nominees through. It isn't fast or easy, but America's political process tilts a little on the slow-and-steady side for things like that. Also note that being a democracy doesn't mean that scribbling on a bit of paper is the limit of what can be done. Voter apathy and the inherent complexity of running a 300 million person country remains the big problem. [1] https://ballotpedia.org/Presidential_election,_2016 https://ballotpedia.org/Presidential_election,_2016
- some_account 8y ago
  Because feminism is trying to change something that is hard-coded into our DNA. Basically make men look at women as if they were men, with no interest in how they look.
  - sctb 8y ago
    Since you won't stop posting unsubstantive flame-bait we've banned the account.
- blattimwind 8y ago
  > Beauty standards are narrower for women in TV because beauty standards are narrower for women period. Decades of feminism have done nothing to change the fact that being beautiful and fashionable is still far more important for women than for men. IME women comment (judge) way more frequently on styling and looks of other women than men ("nice").
  - chongli 8y ago
    Women judge and police each other openly, yes, but men tend to judge women silently. That means if a man doesn't find a woman attractive he'll just ignore her (or act polite but curt). Yes, some men will openly judge and mock women's appearances. These men tend to have a lot of other behaviour problems though.
    - reversecs 8y ago
      Both men and women will tend to be polite but brief with a person they are not attracted to (in the context that the other person is trying to develop a romantic relationship). That is completely normal and I think it's fine and healthy. Feminism will struggle against the tendency of women's attraction to be more heavily weighted by appearance than by character or economic status like men are. I feel like from there men and women have organized themselves and their "competition" according to the criteria set by the opposite sex. Women will become more critical of other women's appearances and men will be more critical of masculine criteria (how much money do you make, can you defend yourself, are you tough/independent/emotionally stable) including penis size, because that is oh so important to making a woman happy. Maybe men and women impose the harshest standards on themselves because they want to appease the opposite side more. And maybe even though it's true that those are characteristics we value in the opposite sex, we don't objectify the opposite sex as much as they objectify themselves. Some men and women will resent the way they are "judged", blaming their "judges" for their feelings of inferiority. Some men and women will try to capitalize on the others insecurity to their own gain. Mostly the inferiority is self imposed. It's a strange balance to acknowledge that (for example) appearances are important, and that it will be more difficult for either sex, particularly women, to find a partner if they don't take care of their appearances. And while that might be true acknowledging that you aren't an object and subjective qualities outside of the rubric of attraction actually do matter and are valuable to people you want to attract. I don't think attraction will ever be negotiated, and that's where feminism will fail and frustrate people. It might become more taboo to admit you like her cause she's a lingerie model, or that he's a catch because he makes 7 figures, but those things are always going to make a person stand out no matter how angry or inferior it makes us feel.
- mc32 8y ago
  This is unrelated to fashion and admittedly had no major purpose, but I’d like to see newscasters and presenters pick up on mid Atlantic English again. It makes it easier to listen to when you don’t have to tune your ear to weird local (and lazy) accents.
- rustcharm 8y ago
  Beauty Standards for women are narrower? Men all wear the same suit to formal events.
- sparkpeasy 8y ago
  "Because society is sexist against women, society should be sexist against women."
another-cuppa 8y ago
All male newscasters have the same hair too. Stop trying to make everything a feminist issue.
- ronjouch 8y ago
  > "All male newscasters have the same hair too" Source? Observation? On how many instances? I'd like to know too, in order to compare, but before asserting something as strong as "Stop trying to make everything a feminist issue", you have to at least reach the data bar of what you are challenging. The original article does (as often with popular reporting) a shitty job at providing references and I couldn't trace the original research paper, but assuming correct copy-pasting we at least have this from the article: > "Researchers at the University of Texas, Austin, analyzed more than 400 publicity images for local broadcast journalists and found that 95.8 percent of female anchors and reporters had smooth hair. About two-thirds had short or medium-length cuts. Nearly half of the women were blond. Zero had gray hair. Just one black woman in the UT study sample wore her natural curls." -> What's the equivalent percentage for male newscasters?
  - Udik 8y ago
    Apart from the smooth/ curly hair (which might be down to the way they look on camera, with bright screens behind, and/ or the need to keep the look consistent day after day) - how the percentages you gave compare with the rest of the population? For example, most women have short or medium-length cuts. Nearly half are blonde (or dye their hair blonde). Almost all women keep dyeing their hair in their 70s. Etc. Btw, when's the last time you saw a man tv anchor with long hair? Or curly?
    - ardacinar 8y ago
      Talking about Turkey here; Long hair? Not sure, I remember one from early 2000s. Curly? Depends on what you count, an afro? Probably never. Naturally curly male hair shaped into something as close to 'anchor hair'? Pretty much every day.
  - reversecs 8y ago
kpil 8y ago
TV is so dying, they don't even know it. In one way, I'm worried about the quality of news reporting now when traditional media is slowly withering away, but since they are focusing on haircuts, I don't think it really matter. The quality journalism is already mostly gone, and what's left can be found in a small number of online and print publications, read by a small number of people.
- lclarkmichalek 8y ago
  This seems kinda tangential to the article, which does not even begin to touch on why of those issues.
- erikpukinskis 8y ago
  It's not that TV is dying, it's that monocultures are contracting. They will grow again, but won't reach the same heights. The haircuts need to be one way, because the anchors are trying to reach as large an audience as possible. If they were speaking only to, say, soccer fans, they would have other choices. Same is true for many other audiences. But if you want to go for a "universal" audience, you have to go to the lowest common denominator. The internet has turned that on its head. You actually can sustainably run a news show for soccer fans only, and be financially successful. Whereas before the distribution costs were too high to allow anything other than mass market news brands. However, we shant over-extrapolate here. It turns out that many people actually identify more with the "big middle" than with any little subcultures. They enjoy standard, "basic" stuff. They want no fuss, and they like universal appeal. They don't like balkanization. Perhaps they were part of a tight knit tribe, and they don't want to go back to that. For this reason, I would call this moment a "contract" of mass media, not a death of it. I think these generic brands will contract, but in doing so will find their core audience. People who are not alienated by the "anchor bob" but comforted by it.
emilfihlman 8y ago
The GDPR blocker doesn't go away even if you accept.
- simfoo 8y ago
  I get "Request has been terminated Possible causes: the network is offline, Origin is not allowed by Access-Control-Allow-Origin, the page is being unloaded, etc." when I press accept
- beeforpork 8y ago
  Yeah, slowly we realise that GDPR was too good to be true. And indeed, it is bad.
  - Kim_Bruning 8y ago
    Well, it's mostly news sites that get their money from advertising and tracking that have the gdpr-walls, I haven't really seen it anywhere else. For now it's mostly ... interesting.
- jwilk 8y ago
  Archived copy: https://web.archive.org/web/20180915094558/https://www.instyle.com/hair/secret-beauty-rules-of-television-talking-heads https://web.archive.org/web/20180915094558/https://www.insty... Alas, the photos are missing: https://cdn-img.instyle.com/sites/default/files/styles/684xflex/public/images/2018/08/081318-newscaster-hair-lead.jpg https://cdn-img.instyle.com/sites/default/files/styles/684xf... https://cdn-img.instyle.com/sites/default/files/styles/684xflex/public/images/2018/08/081318-newscaster-hair-embed.jpg https://cdn-img.instyle.com/sites/default/files/styles/684xf... https://cdn-img.instyle.com/sites/default/files/styles/684xflex/public/1534180152/BrittanyNobleJones.jpg https://cdn-img.instyle.com/sites/default/files/styles/684xf... https://cdn-img.instyle.com/sites/default/files/styles/684xflex/public/1534180152/Karla-Redditte.jpg https://cdn-img.instyle.com/sites/default/files/styles/684xf... https://cdn-img.instyle.com/sites/default/files/styles/684xflex/public/1534180152/Jana.jpg https://cdn-img.instyle.com/sites/default/files/styles/684xf...
Alterlife 8y ago
Do 95.8 percent of female newscasters have the same hair? I don't see it. Whats the source of that number? Where are the examples? All I see in the article is advertising and counter examples. From what I can tell, the women in news just like the women in real life seem to change their hairdo every other day.
- mratzloff 8y ago
  According to the article, it refers to the percentage who have straight hair.
  - Alterlife 8y ago
    Thanks, I see the critical line in the article now: "95.8 percent of female anchors and reporters had smooth hair" That is a totally different statement from the title to me. Almost all, actually probably ALL the women in my professional circles have smooth hair too. Some of them get it straightened at a parlor. It may have something to do with where I'm located as well.
- smhost 8y ago
  here's that video from earlier this year: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=khbihkeOISc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=khbihkeOISc this sample doesn't look like 96%, but still pretty high up there.
nobrains 8y ago
They are optimizing for their audience. Like this: https://twitter.com/JRehling/status/1029374020037238784?s=19 https://twitter.com/JRehling/status/1029374020037238784?s=19

57 points by rustcharm 8y ago

Skimmed around for mentioning color keying but didn't find anything. That being said, I've long noticed the weird uniform of it all. And if you are on Sinclair or Fox you have to be blonde. A few years ago I was in an art and technology exhibit. One of the neater exhibits was a scrape of all the profile pictures on Yahoo personals (this was a while ago) and all the women's photos looked the same and the men's were all over the place with hats or props it was rather crazy to see. I keep thinking of peacocks whenever I remember back on it.

ThJ 8y ago

If we draw an analogy to stagecraft and "Ann Anchor" is a character from a popular play, it isn't unreasonable to expect a performer to dress up for a role. Actors sometimes go as far as losing or gaining weight or muscle mass to better fit a role. Like the theatre, television is show business. Beauty standards are narrower for women in TV because beauty standards are narrower for women period. Decades of feminism have done nothing to change the fact that being beautiful and fashionable is still far more important for women than for men. TV executives don't personally care how anchors look. They care about viewer numbers and everything you see on screen is optimised toward that. If having a particular look boosts the numbers, then they will want that look. If having two heads boosted the numbers, they'd want that too. It's no different than politics: Only the voters can be blamed for electing bad politicians.

pimmen 8y ago
It seems like all the arguments about hairstyles are about how important it is for the broadcaster. If it’s so important to them, how about they help foot the bill?
- lotsofpulp 8y ago
  Presumably, because the broadcaster is able to find another employee who is willing to foot the bill.
porlune 8y ago
I disagree about your last statement: "Only the voters can be blamed for electing bad politicians" If someone controls which subset of choices you are allowed to pick from, and you choose the one you like the most out of those options, that first someone is still to blame for limiting your choice.
- roenxi 8y ago
  Nobody controls who can vote for who in any functioning democracy. There are governments that are better than others at manifesting the will of the voters; I like the sound of Switzerland myself. Practically speaking, "voters" as a bloc aren't organised enough to excercise that so so you get effects where a party will develop a brand then endorse a candidate who is sufficiently aligned with that brand. This isn't some scheme foisted upon them, this is an implicit equilibrium that will be found in any democratic system. I've got long argument about why that happens that I don't want to type here, but it is hardly an undesirable outcome from the perspective of an ordinary citizen. There is an argument against systems where the mathematical equilibrium is 2 parties, but that in no way removes the responsibility of voters for outcomes. If they care, they should organise an alternative. Nothing stopping them except the fact that creating a large brand is hard.
  - taneq 8y ago
    > Nobody controls who can vote for who in any functioning democracy. You mean vote for which of the two candidates?
    - roenxi 8y ago
      Assuming you are talking about America, I am not very familiar with the situation but a quick google ([1]) suggests there were ~1,800 candidates with something like 8 different options with notable representation. Also, afaik, everyone is welcome to join a political party and scrum with the best of them to get good nominees through. It isn't fast or easy, but America's political process tilts a little on the slow-and-steady side for things like that. Also note that being a democracy doesn't mean that scribbling on a bit of paper is the limit of what can be done. Voter apathy and the inherent complexity of running a 300 million person country remains the big problem. [1] https://ballotpedia.org/Presidential_election,_2016 https://ballotpedia.org/Presidential_election,_2016
some_account 8y ago
Because feminism is trying to change something that is hard-coded into our DNA. Basically make men look at women as if they were men, with no interest in how they look.
- sctb 8y ago
  Since you won't stop posting unsubstantive flame-bait we've banned the account.
blattimwind 8y ago
> Beauty standards are narrower for women in TV because beauty standards are narrower for women period. Decades of feminism have done nothing to change the fact that being beautiful and fashionable is still far more important for women than for men. IME women comment (judge) way more frequently on styling and looks of other women than men ("nice").
- chongli 8y ago
  Women judge and police each other openly, yes, but men tend to judge women silently. That means if a man doesn't find a woman attractive he'll just ignore her (or act polite but curt). Yes, some men will openly judge and mock women's appearances. These men tend to have a lot of other behaviour problems though.
  - reversecs 8y ago
    Both men and women will tend to be polite but brief with a person they are not attracted to (in the context that the other person is trying to develop a romantic relationship). That is completely normal and I think it's fine and healthy. Feminism will struggle against the tendency of women's attraction to be more heavily weighted by appearance than by character or economic status like men are. I feel like from there men and women have organized themselves and their "competition" according to the criteria set by the opposite sex. Women will become more critical of other women's appearances and men will be more critical of masculine criteria (how much money do you make, can you defend yourself, are you tough/independent/emotionally stable) including penis size, because that is oh so important to making a woman happy. Maybe men and women impose the harshest standards on themselves because they want to appease the opposite side more. And maybe even though it's true that those are characteristics we value in the opposite sex, we don't objectify the opposite sex as much as they objectify themselves. Some men and women will resent the way they are "judged", blaming their "judges" for their feelings of inferiority. Some men and women will try to capitalize on the others insecurity to their own gain. Mostly the inferiority is self imposed. It's a strange balance to acknowledge that (for example) appearances are important, and that it will be more difficult for either sex, particularly women, to find a partner if they don't take care of their appearances. And while that might be true acknowledging that you aren't an object and subjective qualities outside of the rubric of attraction actually do matter and are valuable to people you want to attract. I don't think attraction will ever be negotiated, and that's where feminism will fail and frustrate people. It might become more taboo to admit you like her cause she's a lingerie model, or that he's a catch because he makes 7 figures, but those things are always going to make a person stand out no matter how angry or inferior it makes us feel.
mc32 8y ago
This is unrelated to fashion and admittedly had no major purpose, but I’d like to see newscasters and presenters pick up on mid Atlantic English again. It makes it easier to listen to when you don’t have to tune your ear to weird local (and lazy) accents.
rustcharm 8y ago
Beauty Standards for women are narrower? Men all wear the same suit to formal events.
sparkpeasy 8y ago
"Because society is sexist against women, society should be sexist against women."

another-cuppa 8y ago

All male newscasters have the same hair too. Stop trying to make everything a feminist issue.

ronjouch 8y ago
> "All male newscasters have the same hair too" Source? Observation? On how many instances? I'd like to know too, in order to compare, but before asserting something as strong as "Stop trying to make everything a feminist issue", you have to at least reach the data bar of what you are challenging. The original article does (as often with popular reporting) a shitty job at providing references and I couldn't trace the original research paper, but assuming correct copy-pasting we at least have this from the article: > "Researchers at the University of Texas, Austin, analyzed more than 400 publicity images for local broadcast journalists and found that 95.8 percent of female anchors and reporters had smooth hair. About two-thirds had short or medium-length cuts. Nearly half of the women were blond. Zero had gray hair. Just one black woman in the UT study sample wore her natural curls." -> What's the equivalent percentage for male newscasters?
- Udik 8y ago
  Apart from the smooth/ curly hair (which might be down to the way they look on camera, with bright screens behind, and/ or the need to keep the look consistent day after day) - how the percentages you gave compare with the rest of the population? For example, most women have short or medium-length cuts. Nearly half are blonde (or dye their hair blonde). Almost all women keep dyeing their hair in their 70s. Etc. Btw, when's the last time you saw a man tv anchor with long hair? Or curly?
  - ardacinar 8y ago
    Talking about Turkey here; Long hair? Not sure, I remember one from early 2000s. Curly? Depends on what you count, an afro? Probably never. Naturally curly male hair shaped into something as close to 'anchor hair'? Pretty much every day.
- reversecs 8y ago

kpil 8y ago

TV is so dying, they don't even know it. In one way, I'm worried about the quality of news reporting now when traditional media is slowly withering away, but since they are focusing on haircuts, I don't think it really matter. The quality journalism is already mostly gone, and what's left can be found in a small number of online and print publications, read by a small number of people.

lclarkmichalek 8y ago
This seems kinda tangential to the article, which does not even begin to touch on why of those issues.
erikpukinskis 8y ago
It's not that TV is dying, it's that monocultures are contracting. They will grow again, but won't reach the same heights. The haircuts need to be one way, because the anchors are trying to reach as large an audience as possible. If they were speaking only to, say, soccer fans, they would have other choices. Same is true for many other audiences. But if you want to go for a "universal" audience, you have to go to the lowest common denominator. The internet has turned that on its head. You actually can sustainably run a news show for soccer fans only, and be financially successful. Whereas before the distribution costs were too high to allow anything other than mass market news brands. However, we shant over-extrapolate here. It turns out that many people actually identify more with the "big middle" than with any little subcultures. They enjoy standard, "basic" stuff. They want no fuss, and they like universal appeal. They don't like balkanization. Perhaps they were part of a tight knit tribe, and they don't want to go back to that. For this reason, I would call this moment a "contract" of mass media, not a death of it. I think these generic brands will contract, but in doing so will find their core audience. People who are not alienated by the "anchor bob" but comforted by it.

emilfihlman 8y ago

The GDPR blocker doesn't go away even if you accept.

simfoo 8y ago
I get "Request has been terminated Possible causes: the network is offline, Origin is not allowed by Access-Control-Allow-Origin, the page is being unloaded, etc." when I press accept
beeforpork 8y ago
Yeah, slowly we realise that GDPR was too good to be true. And indeed, it is bad.
- Kim_Bruning 8y ago
  Well, it's mostly news sites that get their money from advertising and tracking that have the gdpr-walls, I haven't really seen it anywhere else. For now it's mostly ... interesting.
jwilk 8y ago
Archived copy: https://web.archive.org/web/20180915094558/https://www.instyle.com/hair/secret-beauty-rules-of-television-talking-heads https://web.archive.org/web/20180915094558/https://www.insty... Alas, the photos are missing: https://cdn-img.instyle.com/sites/default/files/styles/684xflex/public/images/2018/08/081318-newscaster-hair-lead.jpg https://cdn-img.instyle.com/sites/default/files/styles/684xf... https://cdn-img.instyle.com/sites/default/files/styles/684xflex/public/images/2018/08/081318-newscaster-hair-embed.jpg https://cdn-img.instyle.com/sites/default/files/styles/684xf... https://cdn-img.instyle.com/sites/default/files/styles/684xflex/public/1534180152/BrittanyNobleJones.jpg https://cdn-img.instyle.com/sites/default/files/styles/684xf... https://cdn-img.instyle.com/sites/default/files/styles/684xflex/public/1534180152/Karla-Redditte.jpg https://cdn-img.instyle.com/sites/default/files/styles/684xf... https://cdn-img.instyle.com/sites/default/files/styles/684xflex/public/1534180152/Jana.jpg https://cdn-img.instyle.com/sites/default/files/styles/684xf...

Alterlife 8y ago

Do 95.8 percent of female newscasters have the same hair? I don't see it. Whats the source of that number? Where are the examples? All I see in the article is advertising and counter examples. From what I can tell, the women in news just like the women in real life seem to change their hairdo every other day.

mratzloff 8y ago
According to the article, it refers to the percentage who have straight hair.
- Alterlife 8y ago
  Thanks, I see the critical line in the article now: "95.8 percent of female anchors and reporters had smooth hair" That is a totally different statement from the title to me. Almost all, actually probably ALL the women in my professional circles have smooth hair too. Some of them get it straightened at a parlor. It may have something to do with where I'm located as well.
smhost 8y ago
here's that video from earlier this year: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=khbihkeOISc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=khbihkeOISc this sample doesn't look like 96%, but still pretty high up there.

nobrains 8y ago

They are optimizing for their audience. Like this: https://twitter.com/JRehling/status/1029374020037238784?s=19 https://twitter.com/JRehling/status/1029374020037238784?s=19