News Svengalis at Work

摘要

"You're just not as fabulous as you could be or need to be," Usually, informing an attractive and ambitious young TV reporter that she suffers from a fabulousness deficit might cause bruised feelings or invite an angry reply. But when the edict conies from appearance consultant Katherine Carey, reporter Katie Wiedemann takes it in as readily as any of Carey's other blunt critiques. After all, Wiedemann's bosses at KCRG Cedar Rapids, Iowa, have hired the company Carey represents, Frank N. Magid Associates, specifically for this sort of assessment-and for Magid's detailed advice on how to fix the problem. In a tableau repeated countless times in markets across the country, the appearance consultant sits with the TV journalist in the news director's office, watching a playback of the reporter's recent work and pitilessly dissecting it. Wiedemann, 24, runs KCRG's one-person Dubuque, Iowa, bureau; she shoots, writes and edits her own stories for the 5, 6 and 10 p.m. newscasts. Despite this total-immersion job description, there is no getting around Wiedemann's lack of experience. She's just a year into the business, and it shows on a tape of her report the day before: a live shot from the middle of a car dealership on how gas prices are affecting sales of monster SUVs.