“Anchor Job Has Chain Attached”

“The buzz about Katie Couric has an oddly familiar ring to me. And to Barbara Walters, Connie Chung, Lynn Sherr and Judy Woodruff — all of us women who have sat in a news anchor chair,” Sally Quinn writes in today’s WP.

“Brian Williams and Charlie Gibson, recent successors to the anchor chairs on NBC and ABC, didn’t have anywhere near the same buildup or scrutiny. Nobody mentioned their clothes or hair, and nobody made anything of the fact that Gibson had been on a morning show, but Couric was criticized for not coming from prime-time news. Nobody mentioned the word gravitas. (Couric was accused of not having it.) Nobody made a fuss about Williams and Gibson’s salaries, but much was made of Couric’s $15 million.”

Regarding the salary issue, an e-mailer writes: “I think Charlie’s is 7 million and Brian’s is 4 million. So they don’t make Katie’s salary COMBINED. Equal pay for equal work?”