Question about anchors, reporters, etc.?

Question

Are these people smart or are they just pretty faces to deliver the news to us?

Like they sound nice and articulate while reading the teleprompter but I have a feeling that once that goes off you'll get a lot of humanahamana hamana hama.

Am I right?

Answer 1

Well.  Both.

I've seen quite a few go through the small town where I work and we've had all types.  Some of them say the stupidest things if you don't give them a script and others are very intelligent and I've even seen some who say the stupidest things with a script.  

The anchors don't write everything, but they usually have time to read everything beforehand so that they know what they're saying.  And most reporters have probably done most of the research on their story so they should know what they're talking about.  

Breaking news is a good gauge.  If they can keep it together when they don't have a script at all then they're probably just as articulate as they look.  A great example is the anchor who's just been handed a piece of paper that's something like a press release or a police report and can get the information off of that in a comprehensible manor.  Or the reporter out at a fire with their notes scrawlled on a notepad who can just glance at it every so often while telling you everything that they can.

They're not going to get far in the business if they're not good at reading and getting the facts straight.  Just take a look at all the national anchors, the people that you see when there's something big going on.  They're the people that we viewers trust and they wouldn't be where they were if they couldn't string a few sentences together.They're well educated people.  They're not going to be the people who just read what's in front of them, they're going to know about what they're saying.  We wouldn't listen to them if they weren't.

Answer 2

I agree many of those anchors don't seem to have much dept behind their pretty face or handsome looks (in the case of men). But those who have their own shows  (Wolf Blitzer, Chris Mathews, and Bill O' Riely) have much more wisdom behind their words, and I value what they say because they have the knowledge behind it. I would rather recieve the news from them than those brain dead anchors who are great at reading a prompter and wear a magnificant smile.