TELEVISION : Anchored Out of the Mainstream : Of 49 anchors at the 7 big stations in L.A., only 6 are black or Latino men--and they host newscasts on weekends or in the mornings, rarely weeknights. Asian-American males aren’t in the picture at all.

As a black man seeking to anchor a weeknight TV newscast, Hosea Sanders was warned by well-wishers not to come to Los Angeles.

“One of the things people told me was, ‘Be careful about that market. If you have any aspirations of being a lead anchor, give it up in L.A., because as a black man, it’s just not going to happen.’ ”

Among those who gave him this advice, he says, were people he met at conventions of black journalists, people he knew around the country and people who were already working in Los Angeles. Sanders left his Dallas reporting job and came anyway in 1986 and now anchors weekends at KCBS Channel 2. But he has made it to the more highly visible weeknight newscast only as a substitute anchor.

“I’m finding it very frustrating,” he says. “It’s just something that you hear and don’t want to believe. It’s just tradition. The image of L.A. has always been that blond, Malibu thing.”

Well, Paul Moyer and Jerry Dunphy may not fit that image precisely. But the statistics seem to bear out the warning. Of 49 TV journalists working regularly as anchors at the seven major commercial stations here, 20 are minorities. Of those, only six are men.

While it’s accepted lore that women working in the media frequently encounter a “glass ceiling”--a gender prejudice that keeps them from getting ahead--when it comes to minority group members working as English-language anchors in the Los Angeles market, the people who still have the longest way to go are the men.

There is not a single Asian-American male working as a news anchor at the seven stations. But when Wendy Tokuda joined the staff of KNBC Channel 4 as a weekend anchor in November, each of the network-owned stations could boast of an Asian woman serving as an anchor, bringing them into conformity with what satirist Harry Shearer has called the “one-Asian-woman-per-station rule.”

Among Latinos, Carlos Amezcua co-anchors the “Morning News” at KTLA Channel 5, Chris Conangla is featured on KCBS’ morning and noon news shows, and Tony Velez is a weekend anchor at KTTV Channel 11. By contrast, nine Latino women work as news anchors locally.

And while Sanders and two other black men hold anchor positions--Larry McCormick at KTLA Channel 5 and Larry Carroll at KCAL Channel 9--none of them regularly heads up a weeknight news show, as does KCAL’s Pat Harvey, the only black woman working as an anchor in the L.A. market.

Where are the minority anchormen, and why aren’t they getting ahead? The explanations offered by people in the industry are as diverse as the L.A. minority communities themselves. They range from the benign (there are more women competing for jobs) to the overtly prejudiced (an unwillingness to pair minority men with white women).

The first theory is that an influx of women in broadcasting has reduced opportunities for men of every color.

“Clearly, more women are going into the field of television news,” says Bob Henry, vice president and news director of KCAL. “If you take a look at some of the schools around the country, I think you’ll find that the number of women enrolled in the courses leading to that career has increased dramatically.”

And minority women are said to have an advantage over their male counterparts because of the “twofer” or “double minority” syndrome. Stations are required by the Federal Communications Commission to detail their work-force demographics to show that they are in compliance with equal employment guidelines.

“When I was hired (at KNBC) in the early ‘70s, I counted for two slots--being a female and a minority,” says Tritia Toyota, who now anchors the noon and 6 p.m. newscasts at KCBS. “If you’re a man of color, you only count for one.”

KTLA’s Amezcua sounds a similar note, based on his days as a news anchor in Denver: “My old partner, Reynelda Muse, used to say that she could easily be looked at that way--that she was black and female, and that looked good on the station’s license renewal.”

Another explanation for the disparity between male and female minority anchors is more difficult to prove, but it crops up repeatedly in interviews with minorities in the field: The white, male hiring Establishment feels more comfortable seeing a white male sitting next to a minority female at the anchor desk than the reverse.

“The Asian female has always been looked upon as being a highly desirable sex object, someone who is docile and subservient,” says David Louie, a business reporter for KGO-TV in San Francisco and president of the Asian American Journalists Assn. “Fortunately, none of them who are in anchor positions today fit that stereotype. But I think there is a lingering stereotype that an Asian female sitting next to a white male is fine.”

Black men say they especially run afoul of this prejudice.

“I had a consultant tell me once on the side,” says Sanders of KCBS, “that in his dealings, a lot of white men feel threatened by black men. ‘You’re coming into my home, coming into my bedroom’--that kind of thing.”

Larry Carroll, who anchors weekend newscasts for KCAL, says this tendency has deep historical roots in American culture. “It goes back much further than our lives,” he maintains. “The house jobs on the plantations (as opposed to working out in the fields) went to the women, because they (the white owners) didn’t want the men that close to the family jewels, if you understand what I’m saying.”

No one disputes that there’s a shortage of minority anchormen on L.A.’s airwaves. But do news directors regard that as a problem?

Jose Rios, news director at KCBS and the only minority serving in that capacity at a major TV station in Los Angeles, responds in a way designed to offend neither the minorities nor the Anglos on his staff.

“I think any way you answer that, it bites you in the butt,” he says. “What I will tell you is this: In terms of what I look for in hiring here, I look for qualified people, and I go to pains to make sure that I’m looking not just in traditional places, but in places that will bring me candidates from diverse backgrounds.”

Although Asian-American women work as English-language anchors in many of the country’s major cities, Asian-American male anchors appear to be an endangered species. There are only two: Frank Buckley of WXII-TV in Winston-Salem, N.C., and Stephen Tschida of WDBJ-TV in Roanoak, Va., according to Steven Walker of Don Fitzpatrick Associates, a San Francisco-based job placement service for broadcast industry professionals.

Tschida says flatly that his ethnic appearance has been a hindrance in advancing his anchoring aspirations. “I was told earlier in my career that I should stick to reporting,” he says. “I was told, ‘You don’t have the look to be an anchorman.’ ”

Toyota cites several other reasons for the relative abundance of Asian female anchors compared to men.

“Initially, because there were Asian-American women like myself and Connie Chung on television, that made a difference in who subsequently went into the business,” she says. “If I had been a man, I think it might have been very different.”

Another reason, she says, has to do with the nature of the job. “There’s very little job security in this field,” she says. “You move around a lot. And a lot of Asian men are not willing to take the risk. They are more keyed to having a career that they know will eventually give them job security and advancement. This job does not do that.”

Jeff Wald, news director at KCOP Channel 13, says he simply hasn’t encountered many Asian men in the world of television news. “I have no idea why there aren’t more Asian males coming up through the broadcasting ranks,” he says. “But in my broadcasting career, I’ve met two Asian males.”

Ken Kashiwahara doesn’t believe that he’s part of such an exotic fraternity. Kashiwahara, today an ABC News correspondent based in San Francisco, was a weekend anchor for a year at KABC Channel 7 in the early ‘70s. Mario Machado and Sam Chu Linn also worked as anchors here during that period.

“In the beginning, I think the excuse was that there weren’t enough Asian males in the business,” he says. “That was probably true some years ago, but I think there are quite a few Asian males who have now gotten into television.”

While the shortage of Asian male anchors is a national one, the shortage of black men is in some ways unique to the Los Angeles market.

“In markets like New Orleans, Atlanta, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., Detroit, San Francisco and Chicago, black male anchors are all over the place,” says Larry McCormick, a weekend anchor at KTLA. “Not only are there more black male anchors, there are more black anchors, period.”

McCormick says the lack of black anchors in Los Angeles may be a reflection of Southern California’s demographics.

“The percentage of the black population in the Greater L.A. broadcast market is smaller than in other markets,” he says. “Washington, D.C., is 75% black. New Orleans, Atlanta, Chicago, Detroit and Philadelphia are between 35% and 50% African-American.

“Some people think maybe that’s the reason (there are fewer black anchors in L.A.)--that broadcast managers either consciously or unconsciously tend to put ethnic representations on the air as they see the makeup of the general market.”

Pat Harvey, who anchors the 9 p.m. newscast weeknights on KCAL, acknowledges that the black men who anchor in Los Angeles do so in comparatively marginal time slots. But as the only black female anchoring in Los Angeles, she disputes the notion that black women have it any better than their male counterparts. On the national level, she notes, there are no black women in positions comparable to those held by Bernard Shaw at Cable News Network and Bryant Gumbel at NBC’s “Today” show.

“Also, I don’t see black female weathercasters on the air, and I do see black males,” Harvey says (among them KNBC’s Christopher Nance and KCBS’ Steve Rambo). “Does that mean there’s a preference for black male weathercasters?”

KTLA’s Amezcua, who worked in Los Angeles as a reporter and weekend anchor in 1980-81 at KTTV Channel 11, says Latino males who want to become weeknight anchors have never had it easy here. He recalls talking with Frank Cruz, who was then a weekend anchor with KNBC.

“He was extremely frustrated by the system that kept him from being the main guy. He was passed over time and time again,” Amezcua says. “He was passed over for John Beard, he was passed over for Keith Morrison, he was passed over for Bill Lagattuta. Then Jess Marlow was brought back from Channel 2.”

Amezcua acknowledges that this is not a uniquely Los Angeles phenomenon.

“Denver was a particular frustration because I was passed over three or four times (for Anglo colleagues),” he says, referring to his tenure from 1988 until earlier this year at KCNC-TV there. “I got tired of their inability to promote me.”

But given the status of Latinos as the largest ethnic minority in this area (one-third of the people in the L.A. market, which includes Los Angeles, Orange, Ventura, Riverside and San Bernardino counties, identified themselves as Latinos in the 1990 Census), Amezcua remains baffled that Latino men have not made greater gains here as news anchors.

“I’m not saying that Hispanic men need to be prominent in a community like Minneapolis. But Los Angeles, for heaven’s sake!” he says. “This is the largest population center of Hispanics outside of Latin America. It just doesn’t make sense that a male Hispanic does not hold a position of high visibility.”

Despite the comparative lack of minority men working as anchors here, news directors say that having anchors from different backgrounds is important to them.

“We want to represent the various, diverse parts of our community,” says KCAL’s Bob Henry. “When we have an anchor opening, we look for qualified people from different backgrounds. We have a fairly diverse group of anchors on our air.”

Paradoxically, they say, one of the chief obstacles to getting more minority men in place as news anchors is that their comparative rarity makes them highly sought-after in the job market.

“It’s not as easy as you might think,” KCOP’s Wald says. “The desire is certainly there, but they’re not easy to find.

“When I’m at RTNDA (the annual convention of the Radio and Television News Directors’ Assn.), I always put my feelers out and say I’m looking for anchor people and reporters and so on,” he continues. “They always say, ‘What are you looking for specifically?’ I tell them I’m looking for Hispanic females or males, and they say, ‘Well, isn’t everybody?’ ”

Los Angeles viewers will get to see more minority men anchoring their newscasts, Toyota says, when minorities percolate up to the management level, putting them in a position to hire fellow minorities.

Amezcua agrees, but says it won’t be easy. “Hispanic producers and salespeople need to be encouraged to work into management positions,” he says. “But it’s a good-old-boys club and it’s going to be a tough club to break into.”

Another factor that might catalyze change is a realization by station news managers that the ethnic base of their viewership is not only wider than they’ve assumed but also more affluent.

KTTV weekend anchor Tony Valdez says that news directors may not realize it, but their newscasts, with their simple, direct language and visual aids, are splendid lessons for immigrants learning English as a second language.

“Part of the problem, I believe, is a perception that only people who speak or understand English watch English-language news,” he says. “English-language news, particularly in Los Angeles, has probably taught millions of people to speak English.

“Now, the people who sit and watch these newscasts also see the commercials and have the money to go out and buy those products,” Valdez continues. “The great awakening will happen when news management realizes that that’s going on, and that these people will become even more loyal if they see some people up there on the screen that they can readily identify with.”

How long will it be before a black, Latino or Asian-American man sits in the center of the anchor desk on a prime newscast at a TV station in Los Angeles five times a week? The answer varies with who you ask.

“Quite frankly, I think it would be tough to see a Hispanic male anchoring a weeknight 5 or 6 o’clock newscast here in the future,” Amezcua says. “I can’t see in the next five years where that would happen.”

Hosea Sanders expresses guarded optimism, saying, “I think something’s going to happen. There are some management people in place who are willing to take some chances.”

Bob Henry says, “The pool (of minority men) seems to keep getting deeper and larger. I suspect you’ll see continued diversity as the years go by.”

But to James Hattori, a CBS News correspondent in Dallas who formerly worked as a weekend anchor in Seattle, that’s just pie in the sky.

“The bottom line is that the people who are in the position of making these decisions are always very sympathetic and always understanding,” he says. “But it seems like at some point somebody has got to be more willing to take a chance and not simply give lip service on this issue.”