The Anchorwoman's Golden Shower, or, Beyond the Savitch Curtain

Some say Jessica Savitch was important because she was a pioneer in the male-dominated profession of reading newzak off a teleprompter; others say she provided an important cautionary tale of glamour, drugs, and doomed ambition. I say the famous NBC anchorwoman rooled because she was Atlantic City High School's greatest graduate.

Savitch's moment of glory, the legendary stoned broadcast from 1983, was suppressed by NBC but has emerged at last, and after more than two decades of expectation it can't help being a letdown. She doesn't look any more screwed up than Katherine Harris in her Senate announcement interview with the ever-sober Alan Colmes. I wouldn't even have noticed anything if I hadn't been looking for it, but then I have pretty low expectations about how much logic, information, and coherence you can expect from a one-minute newsbreak. For a Philly-area luminary who could really deliver the goods on live television, you've still got to go with R. Budd Dwyer.

Jessica Savitch may be gone, but her legacy lives on. Jack Shafer takes a tour of blonde TV newsbots, whose ranks and highlights have increased exponentially since the eighties, as demonstrated by the periodic table of blondness. Be forewarned: If you could cross Mr. Blackwell with Joan and Melissa Rivers, the result wouldn't be as bitchy and biting as Shafer is here.