This dissertation examines the uneasy marriage of television and journalism, and the struggle that has raged for over five decades between the journalistic community and its traditional standards, practices and values, and the novel elements that television introduced into journalistic practice. It does so through the lens of television news anchors. The unsettled elements of the American TV journalist\u27s job include fame, heightened emotionalism, appearance and personality, all of which have far-reaching effects on many aspects of journalistic practice, such as cultural authority, selection, promotion and salary. Of all those practicing journalism in the television era, the struggle between the principles of print and radio journalism and these new elements introduced by television is experienced to the greatest degree by the TV news anchors themselves. When it comes to anchors, the journalistic community is schizophrenic; externally, it uses anchors for community promotion and reaps the positive benefits of power, adulation and affirmation of authority that anchors afford. But internally, the community feels that anchors undermine many key journalistic values. This study views journalists as an interpretive community whose members understand and articulate their professional and social roles through discourse. It tracks existing discussions about journalism, and specifically about anchors, to uncover what they reveal about the changing values, codes of behavior and boundaries of the journalistic community. This is accomplished by examining written materials from the popular and trade press, scholarly literature, memoirs, network archives, organizational proceedings, and intermittent broadcasts from the 1950s onward. All of this is tracked as well through interviews with journalists and other employees of news organizations. This study finds that challenges to community standards provide an opportunity for the community to engage in debate that is central to maintaining its identity, and to demonstrate the regulatory function it serves. In this way, community argument itself is a successful product of a process that works to allow the push-pull relationship between television technology and journalism to continue despite their differences. The result is that the television journalists are kept in check by the community, and the community is prompted to reexamine itself and evolve
