Early during “Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy,” the new film that spoofs local television news in the 1970s, the all-male crew at a San Diego station is horrified when their boss introduces the newest member of the on-air team and it turns to be — gulp — a woman.
A disgusted Champ Kind, the station’s dim sports announcer, slams his hand on the managing editor’s desk and bellows, “It is anchorman, not anchorlady, and that is a scientific fact.”
The comedy of “Anchorman” is as broad as the lapels favored by the movie’s equally chauvinistic title character, a role Will Ferrell absorbs with trademark giddiness. But the generation that came of age working in — and watching — local TV news in the ’70s won’t find the film all that satirical.
“There is a lot of truth in it,” says Kathleen Matthews, a 28-year WJLA (Channel 7) veteran who attended an “Anchorman” screening this week.
The movie casts Christina Applegate as the heroine, Veronica Corningstone, an ambitious reporter who becomes the nation’s first female anchor after she joins Burgundy’s crew.
Before she is given a seat at the anchor desk, though, Veronica is assigned stories about feline fashion shows and breakthrough meatloaf recipes. She also must battle colleagues who alternately lust after her and try to undermine her, and a boss who calls her “sweetheart.”
Mrs. Matthews was a little luckier.
She joined WJLA, the local ABC affiliate, in 1976, the year after she graduated from Stanford University. Like Veronica, Mrs. Matthews worked a series of low-level newsroom jobs before reaching the anchor desk, but she says her bosses generally supported her.
“I never experienced sexual harassment during my career, and, thankfully, I never met a Ron Burgundy, although I know they existed,” Mrs. Matthews says.
Yet for all the pinching and patting going on behind the scenes, many newsroom veterans — women included — remember the ’70s as the golden age of local television.
The civil rights and women’s movements blew open the doors of TV newsrooms across the nation.
In the Washington area, WUSA (Channel 9) — which used WTOP as its call letters at the time — gave prominent seats at the anchor desk to three blacks: Max Robinson, J.C. Hayward and Maureen Bunyan.
Mr. Robinson went on to become the nation’s first black national news anchor when he joined ABC’s “World News Tonight” in 1978. Miss Hayward and Miss Bunyan are still on the air in Washington, although Miss Bunyan jumped to WJLA in 1999.
TV stations in the ’70s didn’t have syndicated courtroom shows and 50 years’ worth of sitcom reruns to fill airtime, so they produced their own programming, ushering in an era of local talk shows, magazine shows and prime-time documentaries.
WTTG (Channel 5) — then an independent station — devoted two hours a day to “Panorama,” a public-affairs program hosted by a young Maury Povich. Channel 9 delivered the nation’s first black-oriented public-affairs program, “Harambee.”
The real action in local ’70s television, though, was on the news. It played as a kind of precursor to reality TV, with anchors and reporters whose antics rivaled those of Kojak, Baretta and the other heroes of prime time.
On any given night, Channel 9 viewers might see deadpan police reporter Mike Buchanan chase down crooks on the District’s meanest streets or scrappy street reporter Bruce Johnson take on corruption in City Hall.
Over at the local NBC station, WRC (Channel 4), anchor Jim Vance stuck it to the man with sharply written commentaries about the injustices of the day.
“Anchorman” pays homage to all these conventions.
The movie is Southern California slapstick, but it is sprinkled with kernels of truth that longtime Washingtonians are certain to recognize.
Burgundy’s news team, for example, occupies itself tracking the pregnancy of a panda at the San Diego Zoo, a story line that recalls Washington’s obsession with Ling-Ling, the National Zoo’s famed fertility-challenged resident.
Champ Kind’s catchphrase, “Whammy,” is really no less meaningful than “Let’s go to the videotape,” the signature of Warner Wolf, Channel 9’s sports king in the ’70s.
The sense of sweet nostalgia that permeates “Anchorman” will remind moviegoers that the heyday of local TV news is over, not just in Washington, but in cities across the nation.
These days, viewers have far more choices: Internet news sites, bloggers, the 24-hour cable news networks. The audience share for icons such as Mr. Vance and Gordon Peterson, who celebrated his 35th anniversary at Channel 9 in February, is shrinking steadily.
Today’s TV stations are also more likely to be owned by out-of-town media conglomerates that treat the news as another profit center. Newsroom cutbacks are more common now than during the Nixon and Carter eras.
The future may look bleak — in some cities, stations even have gotten out of the local news business altogether — but Mrs. Matthews still believes in the medium.
“I still love the business. At the end of the day, I think we are still very tuned in to our communities, and I think we still serve an important function,” she says.
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