‘70s seen as time of upheaval, breakthroughs in TV news

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.”

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