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From Lester Holt to Norah O'Donnell, Why Are Anchors Leaving the News Desk?

From Lester Holt to Norah O'Donnell, Why Are Anchors Leaving the News Desk?

Yahoo24-02-2025
Lester Holt's announcement that he's soon leaving his position as anchor at 'NBC Nightly News' is only the latest in a wave of departures. And it comes at a moment when the national TV news media needs all the help it can get.
Holt, renowned for his ability to anchor over long periods of time during breaking news situations, said in his announcement that he plans to devote his energies to the newsmagazine 'Dateline' moving forward. But his departure from the 30-minute nightly telecast that — still — draws millions of pairs of eyeballs is the latest iteration of a trend. Before Holt, there was Chuck Todd, who outright left NBC News earlier this year after exiting the moderator chair at 'Meet the Press' in 2023; Hoda Kotb, who left 'Today' in January; and Norah O'Donnell, whose final broadcast of 'CBS Evening News' aired last month as well. All of this happens at a moment of media upheaval that has also seen a reshuffling of the board at MSNBC, which says goodbye to Joy Reid and Alex Wagner as weeknight anchors.
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The ongoing diminishment of TV news — set into motion by the internet and social media, and accelerated by the rise of a political figure who has declared war on the press — necessarily means that each new hire is diminished by comparison to those who came before. Part of this is just common sense: Lester Holt has been the anchor of 'Nightly' for a decade, and had been the weekend anchor on the broadcast for seven years before that. Whoever steps into his position will, of course, not have the earned trust that Holt built up. The problem, though, is that a substantial portion of the audience may not give his successor, whoever they may be, a chance. A person who has, for a decade since Trump first came down the escalator to declare his 2016 run, absorbed the message that the media is the enemy of the people, but who still had a sneaking fondness for Holt, now sees one more tether to the truth cut.
Holt, Todd, Kotb, and O'Donnell — all of their careers in TV news, if not the positions they most recently occupied, began before the Trump era. As such, all of them had a certain banked credibility, perhaps even with voters who became activated by the current President's distrust and outright hatred of journalists. A new face does not have that advantage, and must build a reputation and a record facing not merely the headwinds of a distracted audience but also as aggressively anti-institutionalist an attitude in the air as has existed in recent memory. On NBC in the mornings, for instance, Craig Melvin, Kotb's replacement, is already known to viewers (he'd been a part of the program previous to his elevation), but faces the challenge of breaking out as a one-name star in an eminently distracted news climate. That will take time, effort, and perhaps an abatement of the news cycle that hasn't yet come.
It's easy to see why, for a Holt or for an O'Donnell, leaving the grind of daily newscasting holds its appeals; O'Donnell's new posting as senior correspondent leaves her, notionally, free to pursue high-profile bookings across CBS News platforms, just as Holt can devote more time to impact journalism outside the day-to-day churn. And O'Donnell's own employer seems to view the position of chief newsreader as so tangent to its operations that it didn't really fill the position — she was replaced by a pair of co-anchors, Maurice DuBois and John Dickerson, who place the focus on correspondents in the field rather than on the person reading the Prompter.
It's easy for commentators of a certain cast of mind to get a bit lofty — CBS' anchor spot, after all, is the one once occupied by Walter Cronkite, whose broadcasts informed the nation through wildly turbulent times. But in our own turbulent times, it's striking not merely that there isn't a unifying Cronkite figure (there hasn't been for years) but also that those who come somewhat close are falling away. Many things in the TV business are cyclical, but the slow decline in relevance of TV news suddenly feels a lot less slow, and a lot more vertiginous. It's easy to see why its stars want off the ride, but hard to know where that leaves the rest of us, in the audience at home and in an electorate increasingly divorced from fact.
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Doctor pleads guilty to supplying Matthew Perry with ketamine
Doctor pleads guilty to supplying Matthew Perry with ketamine

News24

time8 hours ago

  • News24

Doctor pleads guilty to supplying Matthew Perry with ketamine

Dr Salvador Plasencia, charged in Matthew Perry's ketamine overdose case, has pleaded guilty and could face up to 40 years in prison. Plasencia admitted to injecting Perry with ketamine and distributing 20 vials over a two-week period in 2023. Perry, who struggled with addiction and used ketamine for depression therapy, tragically died at the age of 54. A doctor charged in connection with the drug overdose death of actor Matthew Perry pleaded guilty Wednesday to supplying the Friends star with ketamine. Salvador Plasencia, 43, one of five people charged over Perry's death, pleaded guilty in a federal court in Los Angeles to four counts of distribution of ketamine. Plasencia is to be sentenced on 3 December and faces up to 40 years in prison. He will also surrender his medical license. Plasencia's attorney, Karen Goldstein, said after the hearing that her client regretted his actions. 'Dr. Plasencia is profoundly remorseful for the treatment decisions he made while providing ketamine to Matthew Perry,' Goldstein said in a statement. 'He is fully accepting responsibility... acknowledging his failure to protect Mr. Perry, a patient who was especially vulnerable due to addiction.' Plasencia did not provide Perry with the fatal dose of ketamine but supplied the actor with the drug in the weeks before he was found dead in a hot tub at his Los Angeles home. Another doctor, Mark Chavez, pleaded guilty in October to conspiring to distribute ketamine to Perry. READ | Five charged over ketamine death of 'Friends' star Matthew Perry Plasencia allegedly bought ketamine off Chavez and sold it to the American-Canadian actor at hugely inflated prices. 'I wonder how much this moron will pay,' Plasencia wrote in one text message presented by prosecutors. Jasveen Sangha, the alleged 'Ketamine Queen' who supplied drugs to high-end clients and celebrities, is charged with selling Perry the dose that killed him. She has pleaded not guilty. Perry's live-in personal assistant and another man pleaded guilty in August to charges of conspiracy to distribute ketamine. Addiction struggles The actor's lengthy struggles with substance addiction were well-documented, but his death at age 54 sent shockwaves through the global legions of Friends fans. A criminal investigation was launched soon after an autopsy discovered he had high levels of ketamine - an anaesthetic - in his system. In his plea deal with prosecutors, Plasencia said he went to Perry's home to administer ketamine by injection and distributed 20 vials of the drug over a roughly two-week period in autumn 2023. Perry had been taking ketamine as part of supervised therapy for depression. But prosecutors say that before his death, he became addicted to the substance, which also has psychedelic properties and is a popular party drug. Friends, which followed the lives of six New Yorkers navigating adulthood, dating and careers, drew a massive following and made megastars of previously unknown actors. Perry's role as the sarcastic man-child Chandler brought him fabulous wealth, but hid a dark struggle with addiction to painkillers and alcohol. In 2018, he suffered a drug-related burst colon and underwent multiple surgeries. In his 2022 memoir Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing, Perry described going through detox dozens of times. 'I have mostly been sober since 2001,' he wrote, 'save for about sixty or seventy little mishaps.'

nastybee676
nastybee676

Buzz Feed

time9 hours ago

  • Buzz Feed

nastybee676

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Jessica Simpson Confirms She's Single Post-Divorce
Jessica Simpson Confirms She's Single Post-Divorce

Cosmopolitan

time17 hours ago

  • Cosmopolitan

Jessica Simpson Confirms She's Single Post-Divorce

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