“Schieffer Showcasing Women”

USAT’s Peter Johnson analyzes Andrew Tyndall‘s data of the most heavily-used reporters in 2005:

“Bob Schieffer says that since March, when he replaced Dan Rather as interim anchor of The CBS Evening News, his goal has been to “find the best reporters that we can and get them on TV.’

Now, an annual review of the most visible correspondents on the Big Three evening newscasts finds that many are female: Women got 32% more airtime under Schieffer than Rather.”

Schieffer quips: “When you have someone who looks like me, a little visual relief may be in order. People are going to say, ‘You put (correspondent) Lara Logan on because she is quite good-looking.’ Truth is, we would put Lara Logan on if she looked like Andy Rooney.” Other notes:

> “Whether the increase in women has affected viewership can be debated, but so far this season, CBS’ News is up 2%, while NBC is down 7% and ABC down 8%,” Johnson notes.

> Logan “doesn’t sense a major push to feature women,” but says: “I do remember there was a time CBS News was known as the old-boy network.”