All White Team

0
1556

Follow up now on a story we told you about last week.

Former WFSB anchor Jim Handly has been promoted to co-anchor of the 11p.m. news on WRC, also known as News 4, in Washington, D.C. He has been with the station since 1992 and no one is questioning his credentials to move into the high profile role, but the Washington Post is noting that the station’s decision to promote Handly is a milestone of sorts.

When Handly joins Doreen Gentzler, at the end of this month, the station will be fielding an all white anchor team on a major newscast for the first time in decades, in what is a very racially mixed market. The Post asks, does that matter anymore?

Handly is replacing Jim Vance, who is black, and has been with the station for 43 years. The question of course also comes during the same week Washington’s TV news operations have set up permanent camp in Baltimore to cover the racially relevant death of a black man in police custody and the street violence that has followed that death.