i had thought this woman a sister but with the hypenated name dismissed the thought. its nice to see that there are now 2 very out lesbians on the cable news channels
CNN's Lesbian Hippie Not Worried About Oversharing
CNN doesn't talk about Anderson Cooper's sexuality. The network and anchor have their reasons. Jane Velez-Mitchell at CNN's Headline News is taking a slightly more open approach. Just to give you a sense, here's the first sentence of Brian Stelter's profile of the Issues host in the New York Times:
Jane Velez-Mitchell is a true-crime author, a television talking head, a lesbian, an animal activist, a recovering alcoholic and a vegan.
OK! The anchor also has views on dysfunctional families and how many children is too many, but just to take a brief detour into, you know, her job: Velez-Mitchell boosted ratings last month 74 percent over the conservative commentator who had her slot last year beating competitors Keith Olbermann of MSNBC and Campbell Brown of CNN among 25-to-54-year-olds, the viewers advertisers covet. So being openly an gay news anchor is no barrier to ratings glory.
But then CNN already knew that, thanks to Rachel Maddow, whose quickly-successful MSNBC show debuted about two months before Velez-Mitchell was (quite abruptly) pressed into service (she'd been a "glorified freelancer," according to the Times).
Velez-Mitchell's ascent was probably independent of Maddow's. But the two anchors have each drawn enough viewers to make a solid case that you can be openly gay (and even in one case a recovering alcoholic) and a huge success in TV news. It might not be easy, and it's not for everyone, but it's possible. And that's kind of heartening.
CNN doesn't talk about Anderson Cooper's sexuality. The network and anchor have their reasons. Jane Velez-Mitchell at CNN's Headline News is taking a slightly more open approach. 