She Doesn't Deserve This - CBS's Lara Logan Smeared By Tabloid
If you read Deborah's blog, you know she's not one to gush.
An Emmy winner and a recent recipient of the Edward R. Murrow award, Logan was just named CBS's Chief Foreign Affairs Correspondent. Yet as her star rises so does scrutiny of who she is, what she's done, who she's dated, and so on. And this is where the story grows complicated.
Deborah's got all the info on Logan's professional credentials. Since Deborah blogged about her last Sunday, Logan's personal life has been blown wide open.
As a journalist covering American forces in combat, Logan faced a level of personal risk few of us can imagine. Beyond the stress of work, she endured emotional strains in her private life. As Howard Kurtz writes in the Washington Post:
Her mother had died after a lengthy coma, she and her husband had long ago agreed to a separation, and, last November, she broke off an intense relationship with another journalist in Baghdad. Soon afterward, Logan started dating Joseph Burkett, a federal contractor stationed in Iraq who was separated from his wife back in Texas....Eventually, Logan and Burkett plan to get married. Both their divorces are expected to be finalized within the next month.And there is a new complication: She recently discovered that she is pregnant.
"Nobody likes to read about themselves like that, especially the way it's been sensationalized," Logan says of the coverage that spread to the front page of the New York Post, which called her a "sexy CBS siren" and "in-bedded reporter." "I hated it. But I'm just going to rise above it and keep going." The baby is due in January, she says, and she is "looking forward to being a mom."...
The pregnancy was unplanned. Logan says she lost one of her fallopian tubes during an ectopic pregnancy years ago and believed at her age it was highly unlikely that she could get pregnant. The news came at a time when she was looking to change her life.
The big question is, "Does this matter?"
It seems that we continue to hold female journalists to a higher level of personal accountability than men. Maybe I'm not reading the right checkout-counter magazines at the grocery store, but do we follow the sexual lives of male journalists with the same panting need-to-know? I don't believe so. And if Lara Logan does her job, does her personal life matter?
Yes, I know, Bill O'Reilly's personal life was the subject of tabloid fodder. But that was because charges were filed against him in a sexual harrassment case.
Logan didn't break any laws. She hasn't had charges filed against her.
Logan deserves a fair shake in her new position at CBS News. Torrid tales like those reported in the New York Post overly emphasize irrelevant details and downplay the fact that she's a respected and dedicated journalist covering a complex story in a volatile part of the world. Yet more is made of her looks than her accomplishments. This is just plain wrong. She deserves more consideration than this.
Related article: Lara Logan, Activist-Journalist & New CBS Chief Foreign Correspondent
Comments
For more on Lara Logan .. read ERSNews.com, The Enterprise Report ..
she not as “respected” as Lowen thinks she is …
http://www.ersnews.com/permas_stories_updates/LL.htm
The issue is that TV journalists are not hired and or promoted or groomed for their knowledge and ability to write alone… if that is even the main consideration. We’re not talking the Murrow Boys here. Lara Logan and Katie Couric exist for a great measure because of their looks… they are sexy looking women… and that reads on marketing report… And in this day and age it hasn’t beoome less, it has become more.
And it isn’t news… remember Jessica Savitch and her party-girl rep that eventually led to her death.
A great deal of TV hinges on the entertainment value… If it bleeds it leads feeds into our purient natures… Well sex is the other factor of the sex and violence factor… Or as the Roman’s said, “Give them bread and circuses.”
And when you think of it, feminism has only fed into this and became grist for the marketing machine. More choices, more visibility, more exposure. Newton’s Third Law is one of the unavoidable, unstoppable constants of the universe.
Oh please, the woman is a tart. I guess it is okay for guys to sleep around, so why not her. But don’t pretend people have to ignore it. When I was in high school, EVERYBODY, know who the girls that “gave it up” were.