Bimbo Math

I was up watching TV last night. Well, I was kind of reading while the TV was on something or other. Whatever I was ignoring ended and the local news came on, which I never watch. After I realized it was on I went to change it but paused to see a story about a carbon monoxide leak in a party hall in Queens. A whole group of people at a wedding reception got sick and many had to be taken to the hospital.

Here's the part that stood out and what is really, in a nut shell, wrong with the broadcast media. The reporter for the story was one of those cookie-cutter TV bimbos that seem to have taken the place of actual female journalists all over the TV news. I couldn't find the clip on the Internet, so I can't quote it verbatim, but this is what she basically said in the intro to the story:

The carbon monoxide level in the hall was 500 times what
the normal level should be for carbon monoxide, which is zero.

This was not an in-studio back and forth discussion where people can misspeak, she had time to plan the intro and write it. So there is no damn excuse for this.

I went to a dumpy public school system in a southern state that was 49th in SAT scores, but even I learned by the second or third grade that zero multiplied by anything equals zero!

Helen Thomas blazed a trail for this?

I'm sure there are a lot of smart and hard working women with actual journalism degrees toiling in the trenches who can't get an on-camera gig just because they don't look like they could be in Playboy.

Full, firm breasts and long legs shouldn't be the qualifications for TV reporter. Oh wait, that's right, I live in America. How silly of me.