NAGs Upset They Can't Have it All

Kim Gandy, president of the National Association of Gals (NAG), is upset with ABC and Disney because of the decision to replace Elizabeth Vargas on World News Tonight with an old white guy, Charlie Gibson. She thinks evil forces are afoot:

Elizabeth Vargas says she's at peace with her decision to walk away from one of the highest-profile jobs in America. But not everyone is so thrilled about it, especially some women.

Vargas, 43, stepped down as the co-anchor of ABC's "World News Tonight" on Friday, three days after ABC announced that she would leave the broadcast and be replaced by "Good Morning America" co-host Charles Gibson starting today. ABC and Vargas said her unexpected departure was a result of the demands of the job -- and the demands of being the mother of a 3-year-old, with another child due this summer. "For now, for this year, I need to be a good mother," she said in an interview on Friday, a few hours before anchoring her last newscast.

[...]

What's more, critics question whether Vargas's departure after less than six months as an anchor was entirely voluntary, given declines in "World News Tonight's" ratings and considering that Vargas already had experienced the challenges of balancing work and family years before she became pregnant a second time.

"It seems unlikely to me, having survived and thrived through her first pregnancy, that she would logically give up the top job in TV a few months out, anticipating she couldn't handle it," said Kim Gandy, president of the National Organization for Women. "It just doesn't strike me as a logical explanation. I don't think there are too many men who would be happy to be removed from the anchor chair."

Gandy added that ABC, which is owned by the Walt Disney Co., "doesn't look like a very woman-friendly or family-friendly workplace."

A whole panoply of bra-burners is joining with the NAGs to express their displeasure:

NOW has joined with two other prominent women's organizations to protest Vargas's departure. In a letter that will be sent today to ABC News President David Westin and Disney-ABC Television Group President Anne Sweeney, the organizations call Vargas's status "a clear demotion" and characterize it as "a dispiriting return to the days of discrimination against women that we thought were behind us."

In addition to Gandy, the letter is signed by Eleanor Smeal, president of the Feminist Majority Foundation, and Susan Scanlan, chairwoman of the National Council of Women's Organizations, an umbrella group that represents organizations with about 10 million members.

Gandy leaves us with this mournful note:

But that still leaves NOW's Gandy unsatisfied. "If she can't have it all," she said, "who among us could?"

Vargas is a talented professional, but her ratings were in the tank. If she "couldn't have it all", it's because fewer and fewer people were willing to watch her, and in the television business, that means a change is necessary.

I fully expect something similar to happen to Katie Couric when she takes over CBS Evening News in September. There will be an initial ratings rush to see the new kid on TV, but when people realize that this is not the same perky Katie they used to watch over their morning bagel, they'll start drifting away. A year from now who knows whether Katie will still be in the anchor chair?

Gandy better start warming up the harpy chorus.