Transcript
Anchor School
March 10, 2001
BOB GARFIELD: On a recent Saturday a dozen people gathered at the Reuters Bureau in Washington for a day long session on how to be a news anchor. Participants paid 575 dollars each to learn the fine reports of the profession such as makeup application, suit selection, reading from a teleprompter as well as mastering the head turn, script shuffle, anchor toss and fake ad-lib. We sent Amy Dickinson to weigh the aspiring anchors.
AMY DICKINSON: All news anchors have to do is sit still, read their copy and look good around the head and shoulders. They don't even have to wear pants. This is why everyone wants to be an anchor. It seems like an easy, pantless job. Anchors are always tacking extra titles onto their job descriptions like managing editor, but really it's just reading into a camera. Unfortunately, reading, in fact doing anything at all, turns out to be a tall order when you're doing it from behind the anchor desk.
HERB BRUBAKER: We have a hot studio at 10 o'clock and during the morning what we're going to do is put you on the set and co-anchor. You've got the script in front of you. We used to....
AMY DICKINSON: Herb Brubaker, a former producer at NBC who runs the anchor school, takes the participants onto a set to anchor a fictitious local newscast. Their performance is evaluated, and at the day's end they have a professional-looking tape of themselves being an anchor or at least playing one on TV. Only half of the anchors in training already work in the news business, mostly for small cable stations. There's also a lawyer from New York, a PR woman from Pennsylvania and this woman, Suzanne Goldklang [sp?].
WOMAN: ...platinum bezzled-set tennis bracelet. It's very hard to find platinum tennis bracelets anywhere, and when I took my....
AMY DICKINSON: That's Suzanne in her old job as host of the Value Vision Shopping Network in Minneapolis. She's here to see if she can peddle the news as well as she once pushed limited edition porcelain figurines. [BACKGROUND CONVERSATION] On the set, a generic slide of the U.S. capital helps locate the fake newscast in Washington. There are three cameras, two teleprompters, a stage manager and director as well as Nathan Roberts, hired for the day to be permanent co-anchor for the class. The atmosphere is tense and excited, like the casting call from A Chorus Line. [SEGMENT FROM A CHORUS LINE]
MAN: Giant Pandas Mai Ching and Chin Chen [sp?] are resting comfortably, comfortably at their new home, The National Zoo.
WOMAN: Vehicular, excuse me, manslaughter [...?...]--
MAN: That's vehicular by the way, folks. [SEGMENT FROM A CHORUS LINE]
WOMAN: A judge has acquitted a naval academy mis-ship--midshipman--
MAN: Woosh!
WOMAN: I'm sorry--
AMY DICKINSON: Mistakes have a way of being magnified on camera. So do quirks. Anchor wannabe Joe Hamilton has learned from looking at his tape that his left eyebrow has a life of its own.
MAN: They definitely told me a bunch of things, like something about my eyebrow -- didn't even realize about that. I mean--
AMY DICKINSON: You have like an eyebrow issue.
MAN: Yeah, I guess so. Yeah, I just - you know, I think it's like on certain words, when I stress 'em, just so I remember, remember to stress 'em.
MAN: I feel uncomfortable.
AMY DICKINSON: Gary Kasmir suffers from wardrobe distress.
MAN: The ties are coming up - bulking up on the set, and I can see the monitor, I can see the c-- so I'm conscious of that and I'm trying to fix my coat. And I think that came out often. You're trying to fix things while you're on the air, and you're not supposed to be fidgeting like that. And that's comes off! Especially when you're delivering the news. Every little thing, including just the way your eyes look at the teleprompter telegraphs so much to the audience.
AMY DICKINSON: There are other distractions such as looking into the wrong camera, staticky hair, or flop sweat. The students at anchor school haven't exactly displayed the qualities that would make a viewer, even their mom, want to watch their newscast. It's enough to cast a pall over the once-giddy atmosphere.
MAN: Good evening. I'm Mark Rotheringhem, and I made....
AMY DICKINSON: Mark Rotheringhem, a 39 year old pharmaceutical salesman who has no broadcasting experience, takes his place beside Nathan Roberts at the anchor desk. Rotheringhem, who resembles Clark Kent, lives in Greenbay, Wisconsin and is contemplating a career change.
NATHAN ROBERTS: ...are stealing the spotlight!
MARK ROTHERINGHEM: That's right, Nathan. After making a 17-hour journey followed by millions around the world, Giant Pandas Mai Chong and Tien Chen are resting comfortably at their new home - the National Zoo.
AMY DICKINSON: Rotheringhem hits every beat in the fake newscast. He shuffles his papers, like Jennings, delivers his copy with Brokaw-like earnestness and ad libs better than Rather. Rotheringhem, whose all time favorite TV character is Ted Baxter, the anchorman from the Mary Tyler Moore Show, says he learned from hours spent in the studio watching everyone else's mistakes.
MARK ROTHERINGHEM: It really was nervewracking, and I don't know if - from what everybody told me I guess it didn't look that way - I was, I was really nervous, [LAUGHS] so I'm glad it worked - I'm glad it went well.
AMY DICKINSON: Are you interested in being in the news business or are you more interested in just being an anchor.
MARK ROTHERINGHEM: I'm interested in, in learning as much as I can about the business, and-- what I'm planning to do is to talk to Herb -- since I haven't been actually in this business, to find out what kind of a market that I should start in. Should I start as a reporter --cause I'm certainly willing to, you know, work my way up and, and learn the business.
AMY DICKINSON: Most of today's anchor school graduates will return to their home towns with a dream of peddling their audition tapes into a weekend fill-in slot at their local cable station. The best possible outcome is a steady gig in a very small market. There they can learn on the job, sparing the national audience the agony of watching them try.
MAN: As the election standoff continues, both sides are planning for tomorrow's or--audience. I'm sorry.
MAN: Hold it -- you jumped your cue -- that's, that's not your--
MAN: Okay, re-light - let's take it again.
AMY DICKINSON: For On the Media, I'm Amy Dickinson.