There is a whole department devoted to makeup and hair at Fox, and it didn’t matter which show you were on - the look was consistent. “The Foxification of our look has made things completely different - it seemed to me, coming up at the time, that it was Fox that changed everything: a Victoria’s Secret ethos driving what you look like on TV,” acknowledges newswoman Jami Floyd, who used to appear regularly as a commentator on Fox News shows. “Then I learned I don’t look like Winona Ryder.” “I had my hair cut very short, like Winona Ryder,” Couric recalls of one disastrous episode when she went from short to severe.
Back in the late ’80s and early ’90s, female anchors on all TV news sets wore demure jackets, matte lipstick, and tame - occasionally severe - hairdos. Janet Flora, a makeup artist for CNBC’s Closing Bell and a frequent makeup artist on the Today show, is among the many who point out: “It appears to my trained eye, Fox News - they simply wear much too much makeup.” Which is a delicate way of putting it.Ī more candid assessment from a makeup artist who freelances: “I mean, frankly, to me, those smart women on Fox look like bimbos.”īimboism on the news is a relative novelty. But on Fox, the gloss pots seem to runneth over. It is true that Brianna Keilar, CNN’s senior Washington correspondent, wears a touch of peach gloss.
“It was just a habit.”)īut as all beauty professionals know: Lip gloss makes TV regulars look younger - and on television, the appearance of youth, at least among women, is always paramount.
“Maybe I went a little heavy on the lip gloss” back in the old days, she concedes. (Even Couric admits to this particular failing. A little bit of gloss on the lips is a lot on camera. “You look at high-shine gloss, and you think: What did that anchor say just now? If there’s a lot of gloss, I get distracted. “Among the biggest distractions on TV? Hands down, it’s high-shine lip gloss because that’s all you can focus on when you look at the anchor’s face,” explains Kathy Pomerantz, who was head of hair and makeup at Al Jazeera America until it shuttered last year and these days works occasionally on Joy Behar and other network stars.