Words Count Before Clothes

“Head and Shoulders” by Rose-Marie Turk (June 30) gives the readers the opinions of an assortment of styling professionals on the on-air appearance of many of the local TV newscasters. While the story was interesting, does the average viewer care what the news reader is wearing as long as it does not distract from the content of the news?

More distracting than the clothes these people are wearing are the inane remarks some of them far too frequently toss in, such as, “Thank you Fred, that was a good story,” a comment that should be made in off-air time.

The whole idea of a news team with an anchor and a passel of anchorettes would, if we were not so used to it, seem rather silly, certainly to anyone who has watched a BBC news broadcast in which a conservatively dressed news reader simply reads the news.

Would that only one local station try such a format. The job could be done by any one of the hundreds of able would-be actors or actresses who abound in Hollywood.

WAYNE LINCOLN

Los Angeles

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Living here in tinsel town, I keep forgetting that what’s on the outside carries more weight than what a person thinks or says.

After all, if TV news anchors look stylish and up to date, they must know just what they are talking about.

In a city as diverse and interesting as Los Angeles, I bet you could find something actually newsworthy to write about, rather than the length of a person’s hair or the size of a lapel.

FRANCES LIPPMAN

Los Angeles