So Lou Dobbs has departed CNN, where his increasingly insane rantings have positioned him for bigger and better things in the "movement conservative marketplace" I'm always talking about. I had predicted early on that he would run a third-party campaign for President in 2008, and he ended up considering it but not taking the plunge. He'll certainly encourage talk of a 2012 run, whether that's his plan or not, because the idea of it is a big marketing plus for him.
Anyway, CNN has reportedly already decided to give John King that 7:00 slot, which is a shame because they had a real opportunity to increase the diversity of CNN's prime-time line-up -- by adding a dark-haired middle-aged man to replace grey-haired Dobbs.
CNN remains dominated with the grey-hairs: Wolf Blitzer, Anderson Cooper, John Roberts in the morning... hell, Larry King has the darkest hair of the bunch. MSNBC and FOXNews have been way more progressive. As Olbermann and Matthews are rapidly greying, MSNBC has brought in brown-topped talents Ed Schultz and Joe Scarborough, while FOXNews balances Bill O'Reilly and Glenn Beck with dark-domed men like Sean Hannity, Neil Cavuto, and Bret Baier. FOXNews also dares go dark with Chris Wallace for its Sunday interview show (as does ABC, with George Stephanopoulas), whereas CNN (John King), NBC (David Gregory, replayed on MSNBC), and CBS (Bob Schieffer) stick with grey.
Hey, diversity in hair color was as much as one could hope for, right?
I mean, CNN, like the other two cable networks, had already added its token female prime-time host (after the Hillary Clinton campaign rudely pointed out the total and complete lack of them): they have Campbell Brown, MSNBC has Rachel Maddow, and FOXNews has Greta Van Susteren.
And don't tell me you thought maybe they'd put a racial minority in prime time? (Although I did think they would at least go through the motions of pretending to consider Soledad O'Brien, Rick Sanchez, Tony Harris, etc.)
That's crazy talk! Next you'll probably want one of the three cable news networks to put a black or Hispanic on in the morning! Like America is ready to wake up to that on their television! (Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't believe there's anyone 'of color' hosting or co-hosting on any of the three cable news networks between 5 and 11 am.)
Ah well. That's cable news. FOXNews, to the best of my knowledge, doesn't have a single minority among its 17 weekday hosts/anchors/co-anchors (they have Geraldo on the weekend -- but does that really count?). The closest they come to having dark skin behind a desk is "breaking news anchor" Harris Faulkner. (Her family must be so proud.)
MSNBC is no different, and you would think they might actually care. Their snow-white weekday line-up is Dan Kloeffler, Willie Geist, Joe Scarborough (w/ Mika B.), Dylan Ratigan, Dr. Nancy Snyderman, Andrea Mitchell, and then Schultz-Matthews-Olbermann-Maddow. They had Carlos Watson at 11:00am for a couple of months, but he's gone now. I think Tamron Hall has a regular anchor slot during the early-afternoon live desk, but they sure don't make it easy to find that out on their web site.
At least CNN has Harris anchoring the live desk at midday, and Sanchez in the afternoon. That's something, I guess.
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