Stiletto Network

Hello Wrinkles, Good-Bye Job

Network TV news is the last place one might expect this to happen. It’s notoriously ruthless and bitchy, one big popularity contest where “likeability” is based on looks rather than competence. It’s tough for female anchors to focus on the job when viewers zero in on their crow’s-feet and when camera time is fleeting no matter how strong their journalistic cred. Hello wrinkles, good-bye job.

Kitty Pilgrim knew this only too well, and she’d managed to last well past most female anchors’ expiration date at age 40. She’d begun her career at CNN as a producer, but she was identified as anchor material when higher-ups saw she was not only clever and articulate but also gorgeous. Even now, more than a decade later, Pilgrim ...