The White Newswomen Who Won the Civil Rights Movement

     This photograph by Annie Leibovitz appeared in Life Magazine’s June, 1982 issue (pp. 100-106) with an article by Jennifer Allen titled, “The Women Who Make the News: Chipping Away at TV’s Sex Barriers.”  It marks a decision by the major networks to promote white blond women to key on-air positions and to demote non-whites no matter what their journalistic qualifications. Allen writes that, “The men who do the hiring still favor blonds, a prejudice that amuses some of the women [in the photo]…” Jane Pauley says the networks’ new policy of hiring women was the result of the United States Federal Communications Commission “equal-opportunity regulations”— those regulations being the result of the civil rights movement that Blacks believed would benefit themselves. As a result of this policy many Black and non-blond journalists were fired.

     L-R: Lesley Stahl, Susan Spencer, Betsy Aaron, Diane Sawyer, Jessica Savitch, Jane Pauley, Sylvia Chase, Lynn Sherr.