, finally returning to on-camera reporting as a political correspondent (MSNBC, 2000). From 1984 to 1986, Couric worked as an on-camera reporter for WTVJ in Miami, moving to Washington, DC, in 1987 as a reporter for WRC-TV, an NBC affiliate station. It was from here, in 1989, that she was made a deputy Pentagon correspondent for the network, and in 1990, in the wake of winning an Emmy and an Associated Press award for her reporting (MSNBC, 2000), she became a correspondent for the Today Show. In April 1991, she debuted as Today's coanchor, beginning as a substitute for coanchor Deborah Norville, who was on maternity leave (Bumiller, 1996). She permanently replaced Norville and has remained as coanchor ever since.
In any of a variety of popular publications, Couric has been designated "perky," chiefly on account of her physical appearance and on-camera comportment on Today. While Couric cites this designation as having a "sexist, patronizing undercurrent" that would not accompany descriptions of males in her position (Marin, Chang, & Angell, 1998, p. 53), physical appearance has long been regarded as a feature of television success. Stereotyping of women in television has historically been accomplished through the deliberate portrayal of women as sex objects, as ditsy, in terms of physical attractiveness, and in other ways not typical of male portrayals. As Ford, LaTour, and Lundstrom (1991) note, there is disagreement about the content of inappropriate stereotypes. Feminist women are more likely to be critical of traditional role portrayals and to favor role portrayals of professional career women. Traditional women are more likely to be critical of feminist-attitude portrayals and to find less fault with traditional-role portrayals.
In the most recent version of a nationally known Cambridge Documentaries film, Still Killing Us Softly, the advertising industry is accused of serious misconduct, including the glorification of violen...