Shales Disses Amanpour

My heart skipped a beat last week when the news  came out that CNN Correspondent Christiane Amanpour is going to be the new host of ABC’s This Week.  When I was a kid, I wanted to grow up to be just like Christiane Amanpour because she had a cool job and a cool accent.  But Washington Post TV critic Tom Shales, ever the curmudgeon, does not agree.  He thinks there are far more deserving men for the job. 

Shales’ argument:  the Sunday morning talk shows are all about domestic American politics and Amanpour is deficient in that area because she spends most of her time reporting on complex foreign affairs issues.  And you know, foreign affairs rarely, if ever, creeps into any political discussion.  Really, when has a politician ever made war a campaign issue?  Oh dear Tom Shales, haven’t you ever heard of a transferable skill?  I’m willing to bet that interviewing warlords more than prepares you for the rigors of interviewing Republican House Minority Leader John Boehner. 

Shales’ evidence:  some people don’t like Amanpour.  ABC news insiders are angry about the decision to make Amanpour the host of This Week.  The conservative Media Research Center says she’s a liberal.  There’s a Facebook group outraged over her supposed anti-Israel bias.   

Shales’ solution:  ABC News president David Westin should “withdraw Amanpour’s name and come up with a new ‘nominee’ for the job.”

Okay, maybe this is not so much about shattering the glass-ceiling, considering that Katie Couric, Diane Sawyer, Gwen Ifill and Rachel Maddow all host their own shows.  But Shales’ argument really only extends as far as other people don’t like her and that he thinks there are more deserving men for the job.  Shales’ article reminds me of some of the arguments made against Sonja Sotomayor becoming a Supreme Court Justice:  she’s not good enough; surely there are more deserving people; she’s biased.  Shales offers up two white men (Nightline’s Terry Moran and White House Correspondent Jake Tapper) who are far more deserving because they are political insiders.  And that goes to my next point, which is that perhaps it’s best to move away from the political insiders, who are mostly white guys.  A little diversity in the types of questions that are asked and the types of discussions we have in the mainstream media can not be a bad thing.  Of course, some will argue that Amanpour is pretty establishment, coming from CNN, but I’m talking more diversity in terms of career background and the questions she might ask on the big issues of the day.

Then again maybe I still resent Shales for his comment about Katie Couric looking chubby in the white suit she wore the night she debuted as the CBS Nightly News anchor.  Shales, get thyself a mirror!