University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses

Heels, microphones, and unlikely heroines: comparing the female broadcast journalist in the fiction of Sparkle Hayter and Kelly Lange

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Heels, microphones, and unlikely heroines: comparing the female broadcast journalist in the fiction of Sparkle Hayter and Kelly Lange

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HEELS, MICROPHONES, AND UNLIKELY HEROINES: COMPARING THE
FEMALE BROADCAST JOURNALIST IN THE FICTION OF SPARKLE HAYTER
AND KELLY LANGE

by

Kristie Hang

________________________________________________________________________

A Thesis Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE USC GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
MASTER OF ARTS
(BROADCAST JOURNALISM)

May 2012

Copyright 2012 Kristie Hang

Table of Contents

Abstract iv

Chapter One: Literature Review 1

Chapter Two: Methodology 6

Chapter Three: Character Biographies 8
Meet Robin Jean Hudson: “Clumsy, Accident-prone Reporter” 8
Meet Maxi Poole: Gorgeous Investigative TV Journalist 12

Chapter Four: 16
Other Notable Female Journalists in Both Series
Joanne Armoire: The Journalist Caught Romancing the Source 16
Claire Thibodeaux: The minority in the newsroom 17
Tamayo Scheinman: The journalist that hates being a journalist 18
Miss Amy Penny: The babe turned journalist 19
Dr. Solange Stevenson: Resident Bitch 20
Wendy Harris: The World Class Producer 21
Felicia James: Reporter With a Successful Love and Family Life 22
Sunday Trent: The Eager Intern 22
Christine Williams: Journalist Killed on the Story 23
Single Reporter: Laurel Baker 23

Chapter Five: The Sexist Editor 25
Robin Hudson and Jerry Spurdle 25
Maxi Poole and Pete Capra 27
Mary Richards and Lou Grant 31
Chapter Six: Camera Ready Fashion 32

ii

Chapter Seven: The Love Life of a Journalist 36
Meet the Former Mr. and Mrs. Avery 36
Love and Hookups: Dating Life of a Divorcee Journalist 38
Meet the Men: Robin Hudson’s Most Notable Hookups 39
Eric Slansky 39
Howard Gollis 39
Michael O’Leary 40
Gus 41
Pierre 42
Maxi Poole: Marriage, Divorce, Dating 43
Former Mrs. Jack Nathanson 43
Richard Winningham: “Crime-dog” 44
Tom McCartney: Journalist Gone Rogue 45
Chapter Eight: Stereotypes Perpetuated 47
“The Sob Sister” 52
“One of the Boys” 54
“The Babe” 56

Chapter Nine: Getting to Know the Journalist,
Their Ethics 59
Robin Hudson, the Journalist 59
The Screw-Ups and the Successes 59
Other Faux pas 61
Journalistic Ethics 64
Maxi Poole, the Journalist 65

Chapter Ten: Conclusion 69

Endnotes 71

Bibliography 77

Appendix A: Novel Summaries 79

iii

iv

Abstract

This work examines the image of the female broadcast journalist in two series of
novels by journalists Sparkle Hayter and Kelly Lange. Using their main protagonists
Robin Hudson and Maxi Poole as guides, this paper analyzes and compares their image
of the female broadcast journalist in the 21
st
century. Because images of journalists in
fiction have an immense influence on how the public perceives real-life journalists, it is
important to examine the fictional characters, how they function within in a
predominately male profession; their relationships with men, journalistic ethics, and the
popularity they possess throughout their careers. A larger picture of female broadcast
journalists in today’s society should then emerge. By focusing on stereotypes such the
“sob sister”, “the babe” and “one of the boys” projected by the female television
journalist, Robin Hudson and Maxi Poole provide a picture of how modern-day
journalists are perceived today and how that image has changed over time. Both authors’
own personal experiences in the newsroom and their representations of female broadcast
journalists in New York and Los Angeles are then compared.

Chapter One:
Literature Review

Journalism has traditionally been a male-dominated profession that has barred
women from entering its exclusive club. The profession of journalism has been structured
by gender according to Deborah Chambers, Linda Steiner, and Carole Fleming’s 2004
study Women and Journalism. Not only were women generally denied entrance to the
newsroom and the right to attend journalism schools, the few women who did bypass
such barriers were frequently confined to secondary roles in the newsroom. It wasn’t until
the advent of World War II, when many men were away at war that more opportunities in
journalism opened up for women. Even so, women were often limited to covering “soft
news” or feature stories that never made their way onto the front page.
1

Deemed “reporter fiction,” Amanda Rossie, author of Beauty, Brains, and
Bylines, says this literature was filled with extravagant images of women climbing up the
profession as reporters, broadcasters, and etc. Yet, as impressive and encouraging such
images were, they were often stereotypical, unrealistic, and misunderstood as
“progress.”
2
Historian Donna Born adds that although journalism remained mostly a
“man’s job” until the 20
th
century, the “reporter fiction” that emerged provided readers
with what they thought were colorful, never-before-seen images of strong women.
3

These fictional protagonists, however only furthered old stereotypes, which did more to
harm to the progression of females than to help.
Readers are bombarded with familiar themes in American history where women
are passive and “dependent on a man for her self-fulfillment and economic support.”
4

Even in fictional accounts, readers are constantly disappointed that the “groundbreaking”,
independent female protagonists they come to know ultimately succumb to stereotypical
1
2

male authority. Such literature only reinforced the disparity in patriarchal media.
Reporter-fiction tries to change the patriarchal media system for female readers by
providing protagonists that can do it all. These fictional females boast successful
journalism careers, go to the best schools and have enduring love lives. However, the
authors’ attempt to position such protagonists in a male-dominated world actually
confuses the image of the female journalist in fiction between its realities and its illusory
representations. The image of the female journalist in popular culture has long faced the
predicament in incorporating what was seen as “male” traits necessary for success such
as being self-reliant, curious, tough, and unsympathetic versus valued female traits such
as being compassionate, caring, sympathetic, etc.
When readers delve into the lives of fictional female journalists, old stereotypes
perpetuate to the next generation. There are the typical beauty queens turned reporters
seen only for their looks regardless of their journalistic abilities and also the sob sisters;
female journalists who cover the news better than males only to give it all up to get
married and play the passive, trophy wife role. Born writes that the woman journalist in
fiction at the turn of the century is portrayed as “…single and young, attractive,
independent, reliable, curious, determined, economically self-supporting, who is
professional and compassionate.”
5

Women journalists present a paradox. Their presence as professional
writers and presenters of news is now commonplace, yet they continue to
be marked as ‘other,’ as ‘different’ from their male colleagues…However,
while maleness is rendered neutral and male journalists are treated largely
as professionals, women journalists are signified as gendered: their work
is routinely defined and judged by their femininity.
6

Newsrooms were “boys only” clubs. The highest positions in journalism were
almost all held by men. Men were the editors, reporters, and executives of the news
3

business. Novelists tried to transcend this reality. Reporter-fiction places the heroines on
par with the men, however such images were often unattainable and unrealistic in real
life. In real life, women had trouble even getting their foot in the door. In Dustin Sharp’s
2007 Desperately Seeking Women Readers, he argues that the difficulties with defining
news for women and the problems that arise because newspapers are constructed in a sex-
specific way. His study investigates the construction of female readership in U.S.
newspaper history and reinforces women as consumers and men as citizens.
Women’s inability to define news and move issues of importance to
women onto the front pages has been limited by women’s roles in
society...
7

Scholars argue that until women are able to permeate the highest ranks in the
news industry, old restrictions will remain intact, which is detrimental to balanced news
and fair, equal reporting.
8
Karen Ross and Carolyn Byerly say: “The ways in which
women are represented in news media send important messages to the viewing, listening,
and reading publics about women’s place, women’s role, and women’s lives. The
media...are arguably the primary definers and shapers of the news agenda and perform
crucial cultural functions in their gendered framing of public issues and in the gendered
discourses that they persistently promote.”
9

The media play a primary role in shaping, defining, and disseminating
information to the public. Novelists hold immense power as well in creating fictional
characters and situations that try to mimic or exaggerate the lives of real journalists.
These convoluted, overdramatic images set female readers up for failure if they truly
believe that real female journalists and their reporter-fiction counterparts have anything
significant in common.
4

This paper compares images of female television journalists promoted by the
media and those found in the series of novels by authors Sparkle Hayter and Kelly Lange.
Both journalists share much in common. Not only do their series of mystery novels depict
a serious, female crime reporter turned broadcast journalist as the main protagonist, but
they also set the heroine in the top television markets: New York and Los Angeles. Their
characters, Robin Hudson (Hayter) and Maxi Poole (Lange), reflect the realities of being
a female broadcast personality on the number one and two news networks in the nation,
in the 21
st
century.
There have been previous studies on the image of female journalists in fiction,
such as Donna Born’s 1981 influential essay “The Image of the Woman Journalist in
American Popular Fiction 1890 to the Present,” which examines the fictional images of
female reporters from 1890-1920, 1920-1940, 1940-1945, and 1945-1980.This paper
explores the changes that the image of the female journalist in fiction has gone through
since Donna Born documents how the fiction of each period mirrors historical events that
changed women’s roles in society and the workplace.
Born documents that between 1890 and 1920, the image of the female journalist
evolved over time to be one of an independent, capable woman. During World War II,
the workplace included female journalists.
10
From 1945-1980, women struggled with
their identity and professional ambition in the newsroom. Female journalists began to
place their careers above their love lives.

5

By analyzing Hayter’s and Lange’s series (see Appendix A for titles and summaries),
this study analyzes how the protagonists navigate and defy stereotypes, how they define
their journalistic ethics, how they forms relationships with men. Moreover, the ways the
characters are interrelated forms a more complete image of the female journalist in
broadcast fiction of today.

6

Chapter Two:
Methodology

This study looks at the images of 21
st
century female broadcast journalists in
Sparkle Hayter’s Robin Hudson series and Kelly Lange’s Maxi Poole series. For the
current study, a key source was the online IJPC Database of the Image of the Journalist in
Popular Culture Project, which has a database of more than 81,500 items on journalists,
public relations practitioners and media in films, television, radio, fiction, commercials
and cartoons. Many films from the IJPC Database were used for historical background
such as “The Image of the Broadcast Journalist in Movies and Television, 1937-2006,” a
compilation of 200 movie and television clips tracing image of the broadcast journalist in
films from 1937 to 2006,“Real-Life Journalists in Movies and Television, 1939-2003,” a
video containing 79 movie and television clips tracing image of the journalist in films and
television from 1939 to 2003 featuring real-life journalists or actors portraying real-life
journalists or movies based on the lives of real-life journalists, and “Sob Sisters: The
Image of the Female Journalist, 1929-2003” a compilation with more than 136 movie and
television clips documenting the history of the female journalist in film and television in
the 20th and 21st centuries.
An email interview with Robin Hudson series creator, Sparkle Hayter was also
instrumental in my research. Additional articles written about Sparkle Hayter, Robin
Hudson, and Maxi Poole series creator Kelly Lange were also used. The Robin Hudson
series’ What's a Girl Gotta Do? (1994), Nice Girls Finish Last (1996) Revenge of the
Cootie Girls (1997), The Last Manly Man (1998), The Chelsea Girl Murders (2000) and
The Maxi Poole series’ The Reporter (2003), The Dead File (2004), The Graveyard Shift
7

(2005) were all analyzed in this study. Each novel’s protagonist is a print investigative
crime reporter turned broadcast journalist trying to make it alone in a big city.
Based on the previous trends and stereotypes such the “sob sister”, “the babe” and
“one of the boys” projected by the female television journalist in previous fiction, Robin
Hudson and Maxi Poole are analyzed to provide a picture of a 21
st
century female
broadcast television journalist. All notable female journalists in both series were analyzed
as part of the study. A character is defined as being involved in journalism if the
character was identified as a reporter, editor, producer, media executive, writer, intern, or
any other form of news personnel, etc.

8

Chapter Three:
Character Biographies

Robin is a great journalist in many ways-she’s curious, tenacious, skeptical, thinks
outside the box, tries to be fair. In other ways, uh... she’s not great. She’s a loose cannon
and has a bad temper and often gets in her own way.
–Sparkle Hayter talking about her character Robin Hudson
11

Meet Robin Jean Hudson: “Clumsy, Accident-prone Reporter”

Robin Hudson is not the typical gorgeous, ditzy journalist. Not only is Hudson
well traveled and beautiful, but she is also well educated. Armed with her beauty and a
pair of legs to die for, she has worked for the media conglomerate Jackson
Broadcasting’s All News Network ever since it started, fresh out of New York
University’s journalism school. The 5’8, red-haired, blue-eyed beauty aspired to be a
reporter ever since she was a little girl in her small town in Northern Minnesota.
12
Now,
at 41, she still works at Jackson Broadcasting and is in the midst of being transferred to
France for six months to develop programming and repackage existing programming for
the brand new Worldwide Women’s Network.
Hudson is self-conscious about her crow’s feet, which she believes diminish her
on-air effectiveness. Although Hudson lacks the confidence and poise her colleagues
have, she is the journalist who ends up in the middle of stories. When readers first meet a
clumsy, accident-prone Hudson, her ultimate goal is to return to hard news reporting after
being demoted to the Special Reports Unit where tabloid and sensational news rule the
headlines.
13

In What’s a Girl Gotta Do?, readers see Hudson at the top of her game. She is a
"third-string correspondent" on her way to snagging her dream on-air hard news job.
Hudson began her journalistic career as a crime and justice beat reporter covering
9

Manhattan murder trials for ANN. Her big break comes when she is sent to Washington,
D.C., on a temporary assignment to fill in as weekend White House correspondent.
Unfortunately, from there her broadcasting career goes downhill. That temporary gig
could have turned into an “A block spot” with future jobs as a guest panelist, a column on
the Washington Journalism Review, and a Maxwell House commercial, but as Robin
likes to describe it, she could not help but “fuck things up.”
14

Although Hudson initially hates Special Reports because she doesn’t consider it
serious journalism, she spends the majority of her career working there. Despite no
longer being on camera or working in hard news, Hudson is still able to do solid
investigative journalism at a place that also considers allegations of UFO abductees’
news.
15
While working undercover, she exposes the shoddy conditions at a sperm bank
that mixes up a Caucasian man’s sperm and impregnates his wife with the sperm of an
African-American man. She finds herself in the middle of a gangster war and a
worldwide plan to by evil scientists to turn women into submissive homemakers. Robin
can’t help but break news no matter what situation she’s in. Her job is anything but
ordinary.
16

Hudson’s other accomplishments while at Special Reports include: award-
winning series on vigilantism and Nicky Vassar, a fraud she had helped nail. Her editor
Jerry Spurdle took credit for both pieces because he thought it was his right as executive
producer to do so.
17
Hudson moves up the ranks to senior executive producer of Special
Reports before getting handpicked to become head of programming at the World Wide
Women’s Network.
10

Robin has always been different and quirky. Ever since she was a child, she has
been fascinated with murders. She created twenty-four handmade scrapbooks with such
titles as Family Murders, Mass Murders, Random Murders, and Least Likely Killers.
Reading her murder books calmed her down when she was stressed. Hudson likes both a
bit of danger and spontaneity. She deliberately chose to live in a bad part of town despite
repeated pleas from friends to move to a safer area. She thought life without a touch of
mystery and danger was no fun.
One of Hudson’s biggest regrets was when she was lying as a teenager about
seeing a murderer fleeing a crime scene in her hometown. She purposely gave the police
inaccurate information because she thought in a small town the community would point a
finger at her mentally unstable mother. This experience persuaded her of the power of the
media. People never near the crime scene corroborated her false story.
18
She was to
blame for the police taking so long to find the killer because she said a dark-haired boy
ran out of the crime scene when in fact he had blond hair. Her love for news ignited then
and never stopped.
Hudson worked on at her high school newspaper Super Snooper and was also a
cheerleader until she humiliated herself in a jammed-packed stadium with an overly
ambitious kick. She left cheerleading after being promptly labeled as the team’s black
sheep.
19
A workaholic who hates not knowing something, Hudson can’t abide too many
unanswered questions, which is why she went into the news business.
20

11

Hudson’s no “bull-shit attitude” gets her into trouble repeatedly as a
correspondent and reporter. Hudson began her ANN reporting career with the renowned
journalist Joanne Armoire, who is now an “A block” anchor. Unlike Armoire, who knew
when to say what, Hudson had no qualms about telling her sexist editor off when he got
out of line.
Journalism is a lonely industry. Broadcasters move from market to market by
themselves. According to an interview with Robin Hudson series Sparkle Hayter,
journalism is a lonely profession, a fact she experienced firsthand as a working
journalist.
21
Robin Hudson lives alone in a city far away from family. Hudson is infertile,
but doesn’t mind too much since she is convinced insanity runs in her genes. Her mother
is on medication and firmly believes that she is the rightful Queen of England. Robin
considers her cat, Louise Bryant her family. She found the cat in a Chinatown alley when
her ex-husband Burke Avery wanted a baby and she didn’t. She did not think spending
thousands of dollars and going through the invitro process for a baby was worth it.
Louise Bryant is her most prized possession and refuses to eat anything but stir-fired
greens doused in oyster sauce.
22
The cat gets ten times more fan mail than she does and
was part of a heroes cats campaign after she saved Hudson from being murdered, all
conveniently captured on live television. She hired an agent for her cat who employed a
full-time employee to read and answer all Louise Bryant’s fan mail.
Hudson never achieved her ultimate broadcasting dream. She pictured herself as a
renowned journalist reporting from a beautiful foreign country schmoozing with world
leaders.
23
She wanted to be Oriana Fallaci in Rita Hayworth’s body with men swooning
all over her.
24
In reality, Hudson was more like a National Inquirer reporter- sneaking
12

undercover around town with a hidden camera to get the latest juicy stories and
scandals.
25
She dreamt of being like her colleagues who were popular Emmy-winning
reporters who had influences on lawmakers. Instead, she was a klutz with an ironclad
contract that made it difficult for her to quit or be fired.
26

Hudson’s love life also went south during her time as a working journalist. After
twelve years of marriage, her husband cheated on her with a younger, prettier reporter
from her network. For this reason, along with other mishaps and accidents, she believes
that the only consistency in her life is Murphy’s Law whatever can go wrong will.
Through Hudson’s hilarious mishaps, readers see an image of a female journalist who
does not fall into the old stereotypical roles that many women in fiction have succumbed
to in the past.
Meet Maxi Poole: Gorgeous Investigative TV Journalist

Tanned, green-eyed, and beautiful, Maxi Poole is the most well-known
personality of L.A.-’s Channel 6 News in Burbank, California. She’s been in the news
business for more than twelve years and has been reporting the most gut-wrenching,
brutal, and horrific acts of violence since she was a rookie crime reporter fresh out of
college.
27
The extremely witty five-foot-eight blonde chases down the most dangerous
killers of Los Angeles while wearing nothing short of the most fashionable outfits and
highest heels.
The station’s most famous anchor-reporter was previously wife number three to
Academy Award-winner Jack Nathanson before he cheated on her and subsequently
married twice more before being murdered. When readers first meet Maxi Poole, she is
on assignment reporting at her ex-husband’s funeral wearing "a short, bright red, zip-up
13

sweater with a red-and-white tweed miniskirt."
28
Always stylish and sexy, she is first to
the scene even in her stiletto heels. Because Maxi is the face of the second largest news
market in the nation, she often finds herself in the middle of a story because the public
knows it can turn to her for the news.
But Maxi Poole is much more than a pretty face, she’s also the best of the best
investigative reporters. Even her strict, sexist editor, Pete Capra is forced to publicly
acknowledge her talent.
PETE: If Maxi hadn’t stumbled on the clues, no one would ever have
suspected her of killing Gillian…

MAXI: Stumbled on the clues? That was not stumbling, sir. That was solid
investigative journalism.

PETE: Yeah, yeah. (Pete conceded grudging).
29

Many of the men she encounters are infatuated with her. Even Detective Marc
Jorgan from the homicide division, who has known her since she was a cub reporter, has
a crush on her. He is struck by how intelligent and hard working she is and, of course,
beautiful.
In his experience with the press, there were two kinds of television
reporters the ones who cared about spraying their hair, and the kinds that
cared about reporting the news. When he’d first laid eyes on Maxi Poole, a
young blonde beauty, he’d figured her for the former, but soon learned
that she was among the latter.
30

Poole, 32, had not been on a date since her divorce more than a year ago. She
simply never had the time. Maxi has no children and her family lives on the East Coast.
Maxi drives a thirteen-year-old Corvette and frequently proclaims that she is married to
her job. She tells others she has no time for a relationship and that getting sleep is a joke
to her.
14

“Her schedule had been erratic for so long that her body clock was on something
like Venusian time she could never get to sleep before two, three in the morning.”
31

Poole’s father is a pharmacist who owns a successful chain of drugstores on the
East Coast. Her mother teaches dance and runs a ballet studio. Maxi’s sister and brother-
in-law are with the diplomatic corps based in the Middle East. She didn’t really get to see
any of them so her only family in Southern California was her big, furry, Alaskan
Malamute. Like the path of many television journalists, Maxi moved alone to Southern
California for her job with only with her dog in tow. Five-year-old Yukon saved her life
months ago when an intruder broke into her house in an attempt to kill her. Yukon
jumped in front of her with his hundred-plus pounds and consequently almost died from
several deep gashes to the throat.
Maxi Poole is such a dedicated journalist that she’s even in the newsroom on
weekends. Her obsessive personality forces her to get to the bottom of any story. She
doesn’t even let death threats or menacing phone calls stop her from getting the job done
and informing the public that adores her.
She projected warmth, a glow that came at you right through the screen,
and that was something a television personality couldn’t buy, couldn’t
fake, and couldn’t slather on with a makeup sponge.
32

 Tom McCartney describing Maxi Poole.
Viewers like Maxi because wears her emotions on her sleeve. They root for Maxi
to succeed each time she finds herself in a near-death situation while trying to solve a
case. She takes pride in being a compassionate individual more than being a newscaster.
[I don’t] march in the parade, [I] just reported it.
33

Maxi declining offers to do interviews about getting caught up in the
story and almost killed.

15

Poole frequently finds herself thrown into the middle of a story and helping
innocent others along the way even if it occasionally means occasional unethical
journalism. Poole is a journalist who cannot stand by and do nothing. She gets sucked
into each story and is unable to remain on the sidelines. Danger doesn’t faze Maxi Poole.
The story always comes first. Even after barely recovering from her brush with death, she
returns to the studio only to do it all over again.
Readers want Maxi to pull through each time she finds herself in trouble. She is a
likable journalist who tries to get to the bottom of every story simply because it’s the
right thing to do. Poole doesn’t care for the fame or fortune as long as she can help those
in need and rights wrongs, even if it means breaking a rule or two in the process.
16

Chapter Four:
Other Notable Female Journalists in Both Series

From the Robin Hudson series:
Joanne Armoire: The Journalist Caught Romancing the Source
The free press is amazing. God bless it until it goes after you.
34

Joanne Armoire, What's a Girl Gotta Do?

Joanne Armoire is a blonde, beautiful anchor and reporter. She was one of the few
Western women to go to Afghanistan and took a bullet in her leg while covering an
ethnic war.
35
She has been friends with Hudson ever since they started their careers
writing for the All News Network’s flagship news program. Armoire won her first Emmy
for her Afghanistan reports.
36

Just six months after Armoire was promoted to a reporter position, Hudson
inherited her weekend spot while Armoire reported on the United Nations full time.
While Hudson was doing dog stories at Special Reports, Armoire was interviewing
ambassadors and heads of states. Although both journalists started out on the came level,
Armoire did better than Hudson because she knew how to handle their boss’s advances
and ego.
She knew how to speak, when to hold her tongue, and when to be
diplomatic.
37

Although Armoire is known for being a very good reporter, she did knowingly
break one of the basic tenets of the journalistic code of ethics. She had an affair with
Alejandro De Marco, an Argentine general when she did a series of reports on
Argentina’s military adapting to democracy. Despite being fully aware that the
relationship was a conflict of interest, she went along with it anyhow.
38
A few years later,
she is blackmailed for $25,000 by a private investigator who got hold of a tape of her and
the Argentine general having sex in a car.
39

17

Armoire later had to hold a press conference to admit her digressions. She also dated her
cameraman Marty. Despite her breach in journalistic ethics, Armoire continues to have a
successful career.
Claire Thibodeaux: The minority in the newsroom
Claire Thibodeaux is Robin’s ex-producer and one of the people Robin really
trusts.
40
She is extremely beautiful and of mixed racial ancestry. She is African-
American, Caucasian and Native American.
41
The theory is that her boss Jerry Spurdle
hired Thibodeaux so that he would not look like a bigot. Nevertheless, Thibodeaux is an
adept journalist and is the first employee at Special Reports to get a raise out of
Spurdle.
42
She is always fishing for compliments and is always staring at herself in the
mirror.
Thibodeaux and Hudson agreed on pretty much everything except for food. She is
vegetarian and a former model, whereas Robin loves to eat meat. Thibodeaux is a famous
personality in New York who gets into all the hottest VIP spots.
43
Sometimes Robin
Hudson books dinners at exclusive restaurants under her name just to get in and then tells
the waiter that Thibodeaux had something come up and could not make it.
An image consultant once told Thibodeaux to change her last name to make it
easier to pronounce but she refused.
44
She dated a congressman, but later broke it off.
45
In
a year and a half she successfully went from Special Reports producer to general
assignment reporter to U.N. correspondent.

18

Tamayo Scheinman: The journalist that hates being a journalist
Tamayo Scheinman, previously Hudson’s assistant producer is one of Robin
Hudson’s best friends. From Japan, she’s the daughter of an American man and a
Japanese woman.
46
Scheinman hated working in TV news, which is why she left to be a
stand-up comic.
While working at ANN, she loses messages or forgets to pick up tapes. She is
only in her mid-twenties but already had a good journalism career. Before her stint at All
News Network, she was a hostess for a Japanese show called Humiliate Me for Pennies.
47

She is currently writing a movie about UFOs.
48
Scheinman had been writing a book about
her adventures among Americans for a Japanese publisher.
49

She has gone undercover with Hudson while working at Special Reports, but,
unlike Hudson, she has a carefree attitude and is never stressed out.
50
She is also a long-
time smoker. Her grandma Rei lives in Osaka, Japan and her other grandma Ruth lives in
Long Island.
51

Tamayo Scheinman is very popular with friends all over the world.
52
She started
an underground railroad for runaway lovers. She has been helping persecuted girls escape
from their arranged marriages for about a year with money, contacts and inspiration. She
helped to pay for a girl in Thailand’s schooling/college tuition against her family’s
wishes. Info is given out on a need to know basis because of the danger these girls were
in. Scheinman is getting married to a man name Buzzer and Hudson is set to be her
bridesmaid.
53

19

Miss Amy Penny: The babe turned journalist
Amy Penny was born Michelle Amy Soxhaug and remained known as Michelle
Soxhaug until age sixteen. Her mother was married three times and left her as a teen in-
between marriages with a reluctant aunt and uncle in Garibaldi, Alabama.
Her mother’s third marriage was to George W. Penny, an automotive parts
salesman. Penny then moved to Tennessee and took her stepfather’s name, had some
nose work done and went on to win the Miss-Mason-Dixon Line pageant.
Amy Penny was the co-host of ANN’s Gotham Salon, a new fashion magazine
show that has celebrity news, fashion guidance, and content for moms. She was a TV
personality that aspired to be a serious journalist. She was a previous Miss Mason-Dixon
pageant winner and ex-tradeshow spokesmodel for an upscale low-dust baby powder.
Others describe her figure as a Malibu Barbie.
54
Penny is always nervous, a trait
others found attractive.
55
Although she never went to college, at twenty-three, she has a
long resume.
56

She met ANN’s executive producer and ex-anchor Greg Browner at a personal
appearance while she was a TV spokesmodel for a baby powder company and he invited
her to interview with him. She confessed to adultery on her show on air with Robin
Hudson’s ex-husband Burke Avery.
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20

She purposely seduced Hudson’s then-husband and lied to him that she was
pregnant with his child. Penny was actually twenty-five weeks pregnant with Browner’s
child. When he refused to take responsibility, image-conscious Penny was afraid she was
not going to have the father she needed, so she killed Browner and convinced Avery that
the child was his.
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Needless to say Penny and Hudson’s ex-husband Burke Avery are no
longer together.
Dr. Solange Stevenson: Resident Bitch
Solange Stevenson is currently the president of the Worldwide Womens Network.
She was previously a psychologist and ANN broadcast personality, who loves nothing
better than to practice her manipulative, psychology techniques on Robin Hudson. She
has a passive-aggressive attitude.
Stevenson is very bitchy and cannot stand to see anyone be happier than she is.
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Outside of the network, she was the network’s most loved personality with a large
following, but inside ANN things are different. Stevenson went straight from her
doctorate program from Columbia University into broadcasting. She has never actually
practiced psychology, but built her television empire giving advice as a renowned
psychologist.
She went through a divorce from network executive Greg Browner. Her talk show
about reuniting families and girls dating their mother’s boyfriends brought in very high
ratings.
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Though Stevenson is annoying, mean, and backstabbing, Hudson admires her
because she had broken bread with Margaret Thatcher, Princess Diana, Hillary Clinton,
Janet Reno, Barbara Walters, among others.
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21

Stevenson is also a very good businesswoman. As president of WWN, she said she would
never use a sponsor that was not female friendly in its business values, but she sacrificed
her ideals quickly for the sake of business.
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From the Maxi Poole series:
Wendy Harris: The World Class Producer

She may only be four-foot-eleven and ninety pounds, but thirty-year-old Wendy
Harris is a force to be reckoned with in the news industry.
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Harris has an out-of-control
mane of red curly hair and a freckled nose. As Maxi’s closest friend and producer of the
Six O'clock News, has the ability to produce the show, write readers, monitor her crews
in the field, check over reporters’s packages, keep her eye on the clock, and gossip all at
once.
Wendy’s family owns Tommy’s Joint, the world-famous San Francisco restaurant
in the Bay Area. Because she is so short and obsessed with diet and exercise, Wendy
decided to write a how-to book targeted at short women that included quick-fix tips and
low-carb menus.
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Her goal is to show women all over the world that they don’t need to
be tall to be fabulous.
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Harris has a reputation in the business for mentoring young people, even those
from other stations. She sits with them for hours and explains everything she does as she
produces a newscast. If the candidates show promise, she uses her many contacts to get
them entry-level jobs.
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22

Wendy Harris loves news. She lives and breathes it. Harris takes her job very seriously
and wants everyone to do the same:
You beat him up verbally, mentally, emotionally, and bad…All because
he didn’t get a crew to that second rate garage fire in Pasadena before
Channel 7 got there.
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Maxi telling Wendy to cool it after almost bringing a male co-worker to
tears.

Harris doesn’t censor herself or hold back. She has a passion for getting it right
and has a low level of tolerance for anyone in the business who doesn’t get it right.
Her ire was usually explosive, not long lasting but could have a lasting
effect on the meek. But the television news business was not for the meek-
only the tough survived the duration.
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-Maxi on Wendy’s personality.

Felicia James: Reporter With a Successful Love and Family Life

Felicia James is a five-year veteran at Channel 6 News. She’s a slim, attractive
reporter who is married to a successful Beverly Hills orthopedic surgeon and has two
children in elementary school.
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Although not much is known about her, it is worth
noting that she is the only female reporter at Channel 6 who has a successful career and
family life.
Sunday Trent: The Eager Intern

Sunday Trent is the station’s newest intern. Young, beautiful, and blonde, she
turns heads of men and women. The eager college student is a very hard worker and
indispensable in the newsroom. She volunteers to help Wendy Harris with her how-to
book Don’t Be Dumpy. Trent is getting her bachelor’s degree at the University of
Southern California in Communications.
23

Maxi and Wendy love working with Sunday and Editor Pete Capra can’t stop checking
her out because she is drop-dead gorgeous. Trent does so well in her internship that
producer Wendy Harris uses her contacts to get her an entry-level job at a sister station.
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Christine Williams: Journalist Killed on the Story

Christine Williams, Channel 6’s dayside reporter was working solving a prostitute
poison murder when her body was found. She and her crew were shooting in Downtown
Los Angeles where police had originally found the body of a murdered prostitute.
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Williams was next in line for Maxi’s most coveted anchor slot on the 6 p.m. news. She
was a very hard worker and great journalist. The coroner confirmed that Christine was
injected with cyanide poison. She was blonde, middle aged and married twice with no
children.
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Although she was an excellent reporter who gets the story, her love life took
back seat to work. Both her live-in boyfriends were unsuccessful relationships.
Single Reporter: Laurel Baker
Savvy and cynical forty-something reporter Laurel Baker is a babe in the
newsroom who always wants more airtime for her news packages. Although she is
successful in the news business, she cannot find the same success in love. She had two
previous marriages and three live-in partners who did not work out. She likes to bash on
men in her free time and is constantly plugged into the newsroom grapevine with the
latest gossip.

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Baker was also the object of sleazy veteran anchor Rob Reordan’s quest for the
past few years. He baited her over to his house and tried to have sex with her saying he
had details of a breaking story to share.
He lured me over there one weekend on the pretext of having proof about
the mayor’s chief of staff taking money from government contractors.
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Baker telling co-workers about the incident.

She is currently single living by the motto: “I’m dying to be intimate with a guy that will
leave me alone.”
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Chapter Five:
The Sexist Editor
Like all women, you can be subdued by a strong hand, metaphorically speaking…
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Jerry Spurdle, What's a Girl Gotta Do?

Robin Hudson and Jerry Spurdle
Like the stereotypical female journalist in fiction, Robin Hudson has a sexist
hard-to-please boss. These journalists throughout the 19
th
and 20
th
centuries have always
been grumpy, bad tempered, and sharp-tongued but usually soft under their hard façade.
They like to scream out orders, smoke, and drink any chance they get. Jerry Spurdle is no
exception. He always likes to remind Robin that she “belonged to him.”
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Aside from
constantly making rude and demeaning comments, he has a habit of taking credit for her
work. Spurdle is pale, overweight, and dressed like an aide in the Nixon White House. He
alternates between being extremely annoying and wreaking havoc with his sexist jokes in
the work place. He is crude and lewd.
When Robin starts feeling sorry for an interviewee while covering a sperm bank
gone wrong, Spurdle tells her not to get caught up and emotionally tied into the story.
“Look, the only thing we need from Zander is a bite that illustrates the extent of
the empire’s alleged wrongdoing.”
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Claire Thibodeaux, Hudson’s co-worker referred to Spurdle as a “smug,
dissipated white boy with such a big ego you could wrap it around and fly it in Macy’s
Thanksgiving Day parade.
78

Spurdle likes to take jabs at Robin, telling her that she is at the age when her
biological clock is ticking, which “makes all you ladies get all goofy around babies
around this age.” But despite his rude comments, Spurdle also does his job as an
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executive producer and gives Hudson good, unbiased advice. Hudson comes to realize
that some of his comments offer realistic advice for the business.
That’s what happens when you are too close to a story...instead of looking
at it objectively; you lose sight of things and make mistakes.
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Despite his attitude, Spurdle really cares about Hudson and has her best interest in
mind. Spurdle’s ability to read into Hudson’s personality is what saves her life in What’s
a Girl Gotta Do? When Hudson is held captive by Amy Penny, she is allowed to make
one phone call back to the office to divert attention away from her being missing.
Although Hudson says she is okay but will just be a little late to meet her co-worker
Claire Thibodeaux at the restaurant, Spurdle knows she is in trouble right away and calls
the cops. He knows that Hudson does not eat meat so when she says she would meet
Thibodeaux at a non-vegetarian restaurant, he knew what to do right away. Spurdle’s call
helps Hudson narrowly escape death.
Even with his constant sexist remarks, Jerry Spurdle is one of the few people she
trusts.
Every time he screws you over, he helps you out… He’s a jerk, but he’s fairly
honest about it.
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Robin Hudson, What's a Girl Gotta Do?
Journalists disdained Spurdle as well, but he was so good at getting sponsors and
making a lot of money for the company that accountants and company executives loved
him. Spurdle is a big kiss up. He had a list of all the big All News Network executives
and suggested gifts for their birthdays and other upcoming events. Hudson sneaks into his
room and changes the list and all the dates to gifts like black dildos. This is before her
new maturing attitude, which works better to put Spurdle in his place and stop his sexist
comments.
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Robin Hudson’s love-hate relationship with Jerry Spurdle eventually subsides
when she finds a way to make him miserable. As someone who gets through his days by
taking it out on Hudson and other female workers, he becomes depressed when Hudson
tries to take the high road and stop talking back to him. Ever since she acts more
maturely, he feels defeated.
Maxi Poole and Pete Capra

Capra’s style of dealing with news and newsies was a lot of guff. Maxi
knew that deep within that lumpy bear body of his he actually did have a
heart, but she couldn’t resist dishing up some of his own back at him now
and then.
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No matter how much Pete’s jokes get out of line, Maxi Poole and her editor Pete
Capra have a relationship of the utmost respect. His jokingly sexist remarks aside, at
fifty, Capra is still one of the most respected journalists in the business with more than 25
years of reporting on the crime beat in Los Angeles. Although Capra has a reputation of
having a horrible temper, underneath it all, he truly loves good journalism and deeply
cares about each and every one of his reporters.
When reporter Dan O’Brian did not edit a high-rise fire story the way he had
wanted, Pete breaks his collarbone. Capra complains that O’Brian buried the lead and
even added that he should have killed him. But when O’Brian is jailed after getting into a
drunken brawl, Capra not only bails him out of jail at 2:30 a.m., but also puts him
through rehab for $40,000 out of his own news budget.
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Another time he caught a stalker
right outside the building who’d written love notes to his new weatherwoman. The stalker
was carrying a .45 automatic that he pointed foursquare at Capra’s chest.
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Pete was there for Maxi as well, particularly when she’d gotten herself trapped
inside the home of a psychopathic killer on what she’d thought was going to be a routine
interview. He broke into the house with his reporter Richard Winningham and found her
drugged, beaten, and hanging on for dear life.
Capra fits the mold of the stereotypical editor with his chain-smoking, foul-
mouthed, alcoholic ways. Readers are familiar with Pete as the cranky editor, known for
barking orders and leaping up on his desk when breaking news happens. Although strict,
Capra’s way of managing is hailed in the industry. For Pete, good, investigative
journalism comes before ratings. Capra is referred to as being old school, but his
employees really respected him for that.
Ed Ryan was the news director, Pete Capra’s half-his-age boss, and no fan
of Capra. The two men polarized on the philosophy of television
journalism. Ed Ryan cared only for ratings; Pete Capra only cared about
the news. So even the troops saw Capra as a heartless curmudgeon who
ran the newsroom with a sledgehammer, they respected him as one of the
last of a dying breed of news purists.
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Although Maxi deeply respects Pete and knows that he knows she is the best of
the best, she resents him and his sexist ways. Being a veteran reporter and the best
investigative TV journalist at the station, Maxi only wanted to be on “serious” stories,
however Pete still knows the appeal of eye candy.
MAXI: She still couldn’t believe where Pete Capra had assigned her: to
the opening of a club…a Chippendales wanna-be where nearly naked men
danced and women stuffed money into their G-strings. No matter what I
say on tape, the subtext, which our viewers won’t miss, will be This is way
too stupid.
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PETE: Wear something sexy, was his only response…

29

MAXI: She made a mental note to have a private, woman-to-man chat
with Pete Capra about his blatant sexism, and soon. She needed to tell him
that one of these days he was going to get his ass sued for sexual
harassment.
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Capra does soften up for Maxi at times when he knows she is truly upset. He puts her
safety above any story.
PETE: You’re off the story, Maxi.

MAXI: But, boss, I’m so close. This message (death threat) just proves
I’m close.

PETE: Close is no good if you’re dead.
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He knew Pete Capra wouldn’t buy it; he hadn’t even offered it to him.
Capra wouldn’t exploit an underage kid on television news, a rarity among
editors...Capra was different. The majority of news outlets in the L.A.
market were run by campy bankers now. Capra was a throwback. He was
a journalist. Even rarer, he was a journalist with ethics.
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–Tom McCartney on Pete

Although most of the characters sing Capra’s praises, he commits arguably, one
of the worst ethical violations of any fictional journalists in either series. As readers learn
more about Pete Capra in the series’ third novel, they realize that isn’t the almighty,
righteous journalist that many believe him to be. Turns out, before Capra moved to Los
Angeles thirteen years ago, he was a reporter in the Bay Area. Despite being the station’s
star reporter, he was asked to leave after becoming obsessed with a case about a serial
killer who hung out in Golden Gate Park, a man dubbed the walk-in killer and killed with
cyanide. Although Capra knew that the killer only killed blondes, sometimes even raped
them before poisoning them, he decides to secretly put Maxi, on the story because he has
been haunted for fifteen years by the case.
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30

He was putting Maxi at bodily risk, and he couldn’t tell her why. Yes,
he’d agonized over doing it…. Pulling [ed] he off what could be an award-
winning investigative story, one she had single-handily broken. But he had
to do it. Maxi Poole was blonde, the most visible blonde on the news, at
the top-rated television station in Los Angeles. More to the point, she was
“Pete Capra’s blonde.” She worked for him.
90

Capra’s plan to get the killer was unethical and dangerous. Fully aware that his
plan could get Maxi killed, get him sued and end his career, he continues.
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The story is
so important to Pete that he puts Maxi on the graveyard shift. He gives Maxi no
information, but finds solace by following her from a distance. Even after another blonde
reporter, Christine Williams is murdered, he refuses to take Maxi off the case or tell her
what she is doing staking out at MacArthur Park every night. He uses Maxi as bait.
Capra practices tough love with Maxi. Just as Maxi awakes from being knocked
unconscious, she finds Tom McCartney, the man she had feelings for, and the killer dead
on the floor. Traumatized and lost, instead of consoling words, Pete makes her go live
with breaking news as Maxi is throwing up blood.
MAXI: You brought…a CREW? She stammered at Capra. Pete, for God’s
sake, I can’t, she squeaked. She was shaking.

PETE: Well, either you have to, or I have to, because we’re breaking in
live with this story. And I haven’t done this in years.

MAXI: She started to cry. What’s WRONG with you? Why are you doing
this to me?

PETE: Because… because you have to get right back up on the horse,
Maxi. This is for your own good.
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In the heat of the moment, Maxi loathes Pete, but she later reflects:

MAXI: Maybe that’s the one thing he did right. Shoving a microphone in
my hand telling me I was on live probably saved me months of therapy
before I could work again. If ever.
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31

Even though Pete Capra deliberates whether to put Maxi on the case and contends
that it is the hardest thing he’s ever done as a journalist, readers and Maxi forgive him in
the end for his ethical digressions because the case is solved and Maxi comes out alive. In
the real world, Capra could end up royally sued and behind bars, but in this fictional
arena all is well that ends well.
Mary Richards and Lou Grant
Editors/executive producers are journalists who have traditionally portrayed as
bad-tempered, grumpy, and sharp-tongued but usually soft under their bluster. Mary
Richards’s boss, in The Mary Tyler Show is hard-drinking newsman Lou Grant, who
mirrors Jerry Spurdle and Pete Capra. Editors and their reporters typically have a love-
hate relationship.
"You've got spunk," he says, as Richards starts to blush from what she thinks is a
compliment. "I hate spunk," he says. Richards applies for a secretarial job at TV station
WJM but despite her capabilities, her charm is what helps get her through the door, but
it’s her journalistic abilities that keep her at the company.
Over the years, Grant develops a paternal relationship with Richards although the
way he expresses it is unconventional. It is hidden in insults and badgering just as
Spurdle and Hudson banter back and forth. Grant, like Jerry Spurdle is a tough boss.
They are loners, workaholics, and alcoholics, characteristics that reflect the role of the
stereotypical editor.
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Chapter Six:
Camera Ready Fashion

In Donna Born’s analysis of the image of the female journalist in fiction from 1890
to 1980, she finds that the way a woman dresses reveals a lot about her abilities as
journalist. Women from the 19
th
and 20
th
century mostly dressed according to her
femininity. Female journalists, however did not fit into that category. Being a successful
female journalist meant losing feminine qualities and characteristics. Journalism’s daily
job activities make it difficult to wear certain clothing. Bright colored dresses, form-
fitting outfits, and high-heeled shoes are not appropriate for nailing interviews, chasing
down the bad guys, or being taken seriously as a female journalist, however both series’
protagonists Robin Hudson and Maxi Poole choose to wear sexy, stylish outfits that are
not always the most practical.
Clothing sends a strong message. Opinions are made about a woman’s sexuality,
self-confidence, and identity simply based on one’s attire. By wearing clothing too
revealing or inappropriate, females can look weak, hypersexualized and not be taken
seriously. Although one could argue that both protagonists are empowered by breaking
previous practices to dress more masculine, one could also argue that because others
judge females simply based on their clothing, inappropriate outfits can overshadow their
talents and actually do more harm than good for the image of the female journalist.
Amanda Rossie writes:
What a female reporter chooses to wear can affect a myriad of factors—
workplace interactions, first impressions, garnering respect during
interviews with sources, and her reputation within her community.
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Popular paperdoll artist JJ Buch was so inspired by the Robin Hudson series that
she created a stylized look book of the fictional journalist’s most notorious outfits, giving
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readers an idea of what a real-life Robin Hudson would look like. In one of the sketches,
an extremely sexy Hudson doll is wearing a tight, stylish trench coat accompanied by the
Hudson quote:
This is who I thought I would be: a brave, trench-coated figure, looking
serious and beautiful, standing in a war zone in some picturesque country,
bringing the world my own brilliant and illuminating insights on the
news.
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The trench coat outfit looks more like an idealized Barbie Doll, with a skinny
waist and lots of cleavage showing. Another Robin Hudson outfit titled “The Soft-Core
Porn Nurse Dress” is a sexy white plastic mini naughty nurse dress worn with seamed
pantyhose and stiletto heels. The website describes this as the perfect outfit for Robin to
go to a cheap motel in New Jersey to watch porn movies with an actor and hump like
monkeys. One of the other standout sketches is Robin Hudson’s Slinky Red Dress.
“When the moon is full, my brain sends a powerful 'Seek Sperm' message, and I am like a
she-wolf with her nose in the wind, hoping to pick up the scent of a like-minded male."
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Attire is very important to Robin. As she climbs the ladder to a managerial
position, she eventually hires an assistant who doubles as her stylist. Although there is no
explicit mention of her toning down her sometimes-outrageous fashion choices, Hayter
does hint that her assistant’s job was to pick out clothing that made her look professional
for meetings with other important executives. One could infer that as Robin’s job
becomes more important, she finds it much more important to dress professionally and
appropriately in order to be respected.
In Kelly Lange’s third novel, feisty news reporter Maxi Poole is working the
graveyard shift where danger lurks in everywhere. Although her shift is from 9 p.m. to 6
a.m. yet Maxi continues to wear bright, tight, and sexy outfits. When readers first meet
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Maxi, she is wearing 5-inch spiked black designer label heels while covering a funeral.
Poole’s clothing choice also draws negative attention from one of her station’s
cameramen. Her clothing actually ends up making her look weak in his eyes despite his
knowing how competent she is as a journalist.
Harabaugh shot a quick look at Maxi’s sculpted features, her glowing
cheeks, flushed from running, her full lips glimmering in smoky pink
lipstick, the bright green eyes, blonde hair shinning in the lights, her long,
trim body in the fitted silk suit, the spiky black heels, purse winging from
her shoulder… her air of supreme competence overlaid with a look of
vulnerability, like she really did need a man to slay dragons for her.
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Fashion and shopping also define Maxi. As a serial killer is slashing Maxi’s throat
leaving her hanging on for dear life, Maxi has flashbacks and regrets about her gray
suede 4-inch Manolo Blahnik heels and the expensive Vera Brown jade moisture cream
she had just brought.
Maxi’s wardrobe choices also send mixed messages. During an interrogation
session at the county jail, Maxi arrives in a sexy red outfit and 5-inch heels with a
cleavage-baring blouse. As a strong female journalist who is nonchalant about daily
menacing death threats, her wardrobe choices give off a different message. The prison
guards were eyeing her like a babe, not as the top investigative journalist of Channel 6
News. Maxi Poole’s fashion sense backfires on her while she is on the tail of a serial
murderer.
“How did you know I was following you?” He actually laughed.

“You mean in those little click-click-clicky-lady pink high heels…. Some
sleuth you are.”
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By placing style over comfort, many times Robin’s and Maxi’s fashion choices
keep them from doing the best reporting they can do. Both women find it difficult to run
after suspects in stilettos. Their sometimes-inappropriate attire at times shifts the focus to
their sexualized bodies.
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Chapter Seven:
The Love Life of a Journalist

Meet the Former Mr. and Mrs. Avery

Burke Avery and Robin Hudson were together for twelve years. Avery works for
rival television station (Channel 3). His real name is Heinrich Albert Stedlbauer IV,
which he liked to keep secret. He changed it to Burke Avery to be more marketable.
According to the rumors, Avery is being groomed to be the star of a national network. He
had a way of working people’s emotions, which comes in particularly handy when he
tries to cultivate sources. Avery is a germaphobe who is allergic to dust and becomes
obsessive compulsive when things are not in the right order. Not only is he a good-
looking guy, he is also from a very rich family that has been rich for as long as they could
remember. Whereas Robin Hudson is a career woman, Burke Avery is a man looking for
his ideal woman, wife, and mother of his future children.
100

The couple met on a murder trial of a mobster, which Hudson found to be very
romantic. During their honeymoon, they went to a live sex show in Amsterdam, but
Hudson was not entertained. She has to really know someone before she does anything
kinky with him. One of the reasons Hudson and Avery’s relationship did not work out
was because they had expected different things in marriage. They started fighting from
the moment they got married.
I want a peaceful home life, a normal wife, and… children, a house
in the burbs, once in a while, maybe, a home-cooked meal once in
awhile.
101

Hudson is anything but normal. Being a journalist meant pursuing stories and
sources around the clock, waking up early, and getting home late. A peaceful home, a
loving wife who cooked, children, are all things Hudson could not provide for Avery.
102

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Hudson could never fill the housewife role Avery idealized. She does not cook. She eats
every meal standing up. Breakfast usually consists of dry frosted Mini Wheats straight
from the box downed with skim milk downed straight out the carton. For her, work
comes first.
Hudson is also infertile, which was a point of tension in their marriage. She’s also
a big slob. She has flies in her apartment even in the middle of winter. Avery’s mother
once handed her an etiquette book, which she failed to follow. Avery’s parents were
always disappointed in their son’s choice.
Avery’s disappointment with Hudson not being able to settle down as the woman
he wanted eventually prompts him to cheat on her with Amy Penny, a much younger,
prettier reporter from Hudson’s station who fits the image of the woman he desires.
Hudson never slows down after their marriage and continues to break the best
investigative stories, whereas Penny is willing to play the good housewife. Robin is the
last person to be considered weak and girly.
Although Hudson was angry when she found out Burke cheated (she baked his
favorite shirt into a pie and almost made him eat it), but she also realized that it was more
important for her not to get pulled into a stereotypical catfight over him, playing the role
of the scorned woman. She hated the way the divorce lawyer tried to make her look like a
“pitiful victim economically punished by [her husband’s] adultery.” She declined
alimony after hearing her lawyer say that.
Avery claimed to have met Penny while doing a field report at the toy expo while
he was covering it for Channel 3 and Penny was covering it for the All News Network,
whereas in reality he met her at an ANN anniversary party that Robin brought him to as
38

her date. After cheating on her, Avery tries to cultivate Hudson as a source as soon as she
becomes involved in a murder. He even starts sending her little messages calling her his
pet name for her, “Holden” so he could cultivate her as a source.
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After leaving Hudson for Penny, Avery has regrets about his decision and tries to
kiss Hudson before she promptly slaps him. Avery was more content with Hudson’s
personality, but ultimately decides to stay with Penny, someone who matches his ideal
wife. Unfortunately for him, he and Penny break up when she is revealed to be the
mastermind behind two murders and the attempted murder of Robin Hudson. He ends up
fleeing the newsroom to take a vacation back in the Hamptons with his parents to cope.
After Avery returns, he and Hudson agree to be friends again. He eventually gets married
and has a child a few years later with someone who fits the vision of the perfect wife.
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Love and Hookups: Dating Life of a Divorcee Journalist

Robin Hudson is adamant about not hooking up with people at work, although it
often ends up happening anyway.
That’s how it always starts, I get close with someone through work and we
end up in the sack and then we end up in some tempestuous relationship
and we get our feelings hurt.
105

Robin admits that she has at least four romantic fantasies a day about different
men in the office to get her through the workday. She was open to the idea of having safe,
dirty, noncommittal sex with several men she knew and admired until she found someone
she wanted a monogamous relationship with. She often looks on men as sex objects and
cannot help but automatically imagine what it would be like to have sex with a man the
moment after she meets someone new.
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She used to believe in love and Mr. Right, but since her divorce she considers herself

“agnostic” when it comes to love.

You don’t expect it to last forever, you just see it as a great experience to
be had with a great person, set entirely in a fictional present, until that
theoretical True Love comes along.
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Meet the Men: Robin Hudson’s Most Notable Hookups

Eric Slansky, producer for the All News Network

Funny, smart, and gorgeous, Slanksy is Hudson’s first real relationship after her
divorce. Before producing for the Greg Browner show, he was the executive producer for
Ambush, a half-hour issues show where newsmakers and pundits were grilled by liberal
and conservative journalists. Slansky truly liked Hudson and the sex was great.
107
They
dated for six months. Although Hudson begins to question whether she can believe in
love again with Slansky, they eventually realize that they are both not serious enough to
settle down into a real relationship aside from the sex. Their relationship ends when he
moves to the All News Network Bureau in Moscow to field produce.
108

Howard Gollis, stand-up comic

Gollis is a dark, twisted Renaissance man, comic, and artist. Hudson describes
him as sexy, and brilliant but needy. She was so intrigued by him after attending one of
his standup shows that she begged her friend Tamayo Scheinman to introduce her to him.
They went on a total of four dates before calling it quits. The first blow to their
relationship for Hudson was when Gollis tried to blindfold her during their first sexual
encounter. Hudson refuses to do kinky things unless she knows the person really well.
The last straw for Hudson was when Gollis called her at 3 a.m. when he ran out of Prozac
and needed to try some of his jokes out on someone.
40

She had 5 a.m. crew call that morning and ended the relationship then and there. Gollis
continues to call Hudson for some time after to get her back for some time after
unsuccessfully.
109

Michael O’Leary, All News Network Cameraman
O’Leary, 43, spent the last five years as a war correspondent where he faced many
dangers before the All New Network transferred him back to a safer job as a cameraman
for the Special Reports department. He was taken hostage in Lebanon while on
assignment and managed to escape. O’Leary killed twenty-seven dogs on the unlit roads
of Pakistan’s tribal territories over a period of two years during the Afghanistan War and
had a number of crazy driving incidents in Rwanda that prompted ANN management to
not allow him to drive at work.
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Hudson describes him as a plain-looking guy with a big, wacky Irish personality.
O’Leary has been divorced for five years. He grew apart from his American wife who
wanted a husband who would be there seven days a week with her, not covering a war
halfway around the world. They have a 10-year-old daughter, Samantha, together.
O’Leary was the first man Hudson slept with without going on a first date,
something she swore she would never do. They were not monogamous during their
relationship though they really cared for each other. Hudson finds out later that O’Leary
was seeing Hudson the same time as he was seeing Maggie Mason, another one of
Tamayo Scheinman’s friends. O’Leary ends up leaving Mason for Hudson, only to leave
her to rekindle his romance with his ex-wife after he realizes Hudson does not want to a
monogamous relationship and settle down with him.
111

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He liked to collect funny Mecca souvenirs. O’Leary ends up leaving Special
Reports and covers different events for ANN all over the world. Every couple of months,
he has to hit the road and shoot a war or some event around the world. Hudson ends up
dating O’Leary and Gus, an actor at the same time.
Gus, actor
Hudson meets Gus at an art show opening party in SoHo. They had amazing eye
contact above the heads of three other people. Gus got a part in an off-Broadway play in
New York. He also has been in multiple commercials. His family has a salmon cannery
and he had a hairy pet salmon named Harry. Hudson originally thought Gus was acting
when he told her about the pet salmon and the cannery so they turned it into a lying
game.
Obviously we didn’t lie about the details…[just] about the important
things, like who were, and what our lives were like. The role playing
worked for Robin because it kept the reality and talking to a minimum.
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Hudson said her name was Lola and she worked for a think tank where taxpayers
paid her obscene amounts of money to think whatever the hell she wanted. They had sex
on the second date and Robin had checked all the various databases to make sure he
wasn’t a serial killer. She said the company’s motto was “Don’t worry your petty little
head about it. Leave the thinking to us!”
113

42

Gus plays along with Hudson but eventually tries to open up to her. Gus really
wants to be with her but Hudson thought they were just going to use each other for sex.
Hudson repeatedly leaves him during dates because of a murder or kidnapping case or
other work situation. The relationship does not work out because Hudson is not interested
in having a serious relationship at the time.
Pierre, Physicist

We’re wildly incompatible. He’s classy, I’m rough; he speaks French, I
speak English; I work in television, he doesn’t even watch television.
114

Robin Hudson on Pierre

Pierre and Hudson meet while she is in Paris. Hudson’s good friend Tamayo
Scheinman insisted that she meet Pierre because she knew she would like him. According
to a few of Hudson’s co-workers who have met him before, Pierre is dreamy, a genius,
and from minor nobility. He only speaks French and broken English. Pierre lives in a
little apartment off the Rue des Chats Qui Peche and his favorite café the Chez Nous near
Rue Jacob. He’s extremely busy with work and often writes one-line emails to Hudson to
keep in touch.
115

Hudson and Pierre made out beneath the Arc de Triomphe, in the Luxembourg
Gardens, by the old-fashioned carousel near the Eiffel Tower, behind the crypt of a
nineteenth-century French postmaster general, in Pere-Lachaise cemetery and had great
sex. She thought she was really starting to fall in love with him until Maggie Mason tried
to get her to think that Pierre was having an affair with Mason while he was with her.
Mason, also a friend of Scheinman’s, was dating Hudson’s ex-boyfriend Michael
O’Leary at the same time Hudson was dating him.
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O’Leary eventually chooses Hudson over Mason, which prompts her to make Hudson
think that she is dating Pierre too. Hudson ends up sending Pierre a rude email calling
things off until she realizes Mason is lying.
116

You can kiss my hairy white derriere, you phony French fuck.
117

Robin Hudson writing to Pierre
She has since written many emails apologizing to Pierre. For six months, Hudson
has been trying to make things right again. Hudson is currently on a six-month
assignment in France. In six months, her ironclad contract will be up and her apartment
building that burnt down will be rebuilt so she is taking things easy until then. She chose
to go to France over London and Berlin in hopes that she and Pierre can work things
out.
118

Maxi Poole: Marriage, Divorce, Dating

A journalist’s love life is never easy. Maxi moved to California for her job with
her dog Yukon as her only family. Both novelists Sparkle Hayter and Kelly Lange make
it clear that as journalists, their characters’s love lives and relationships are not a walk in
the park.
Former Mrs. Jack Nathanson
Maxi officially became ex-wife number three after divorcing multiple Oscar
winner Jack Nathanson. Maxi’s stern father had been weary of the relationship even at
the beginning, but Jack managed to charm the Poole family with his personality. Jack had
a daughter from a previous marriage and Maxi’s father was worried. Unfortunately, Jack
had turned into a completely different person almost right after the two married and Maxi
had noticed it right away because she was a trained reporter.
119

44

The IRS was after Jack for three years of back taxes because he had gone through
his millions and taken out loans without telling Maxi.
120
He was a shady businessman
who was not smart with his money, frequently living a lavish lifestyle he could no longer
afford and spending wildly on his many affairs. His crooked dealings added to the
strained relationship with Maxi and her straightedge ways. Approximately a year after
their divorce, Nathanson was found shot dead. The two had no children and since their
divorce, Maxi has become great friends with all of Jack’s ex-wives and even godmother
to Jack’s only daughter, Mia. Although she is known for her good looks, Maxi had not
gone on a date with a man for well over a year after the divorce.
Richard Winningham: “Crime-dog”
If they were looking at a normal, ongoing working relationship stretching
out ahead of them, they never would have let this happen. They were both
too smart to let it happen.
121

Robin on hooking up with fellow journalist Richard
Winningham.

Richard Winningham is the first man Maxi sleeps with after her divorce. She
swore she would never get into a relationship with a co-worker let alone sleep with him,
but Richard was different. They both knew journalists never remained in one place for
long and did not mind not having the label as boyfriend and girlfriend. Richard was
handsome, had tousled sandy hair, and was over six feet tall.
122
He is known as the
“crime dog” at the station, for his investigative style.
123
Richard is a senior correspondent,
currently on assignment in Iraq. He did such good reporting at the UGN-owned station in
New York that Channel 6 Managing Editor Pete Capra hired him right away with a hefty
raise and the new title and him transferred to Southern California. But as terrorist
tensions continued to mount, Capra assigned him to cover the Middle East.
45

When a deranged woman held Maxi hostage at knifepoint, it was Richard who
managed to find her with no time to spare.
124
Maxi was slashed from the top of the
sternum to her waist and if it weren’t for Richard, she would have died. Maxi liked to
refer to him as her long distance semi-significant other.

Tom McCartney: Journalist Gone Rogue
Everyone in the business knew Tom. Some vilified him for the great
reporter he had been. That group silently rooted for him, and were pleased
when he nailed a significant story, saw it make air, and made himself
some bucks into the bargain. He absolutely would never back down. They
respected Tom for that and admired him.
125

Tom was previously a highly respected international correspondent for CNN. He
had a broadcast journalism degree from Syracuse and master’s in business and
international politics from New York University. He moved up the ranks of news markets
from Atlanta to Philadelphia to Chicago to L.A. but his life turned upside down after he
ripped his shoulder out of its socket and broke most of his bones while reporting in
Kuwait.
He became addicted to Vicodin and eventually got back to work after his recovery
but unfortunately never got off the pills. After one too many slurred on-air deliveries,
CNN dumped him and no other media outlet would take a chance on him after that.
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Now at 42, Tom worked as a stringer, a newsie who works for no company and belongs
to no union or guilds. He was a night owl, always toting his own rented gear looking for
news to happen, peddling his tapes from station to station until he landed a taker because
he could not compete with stations on the dayside stories.
127

46

But McCartney was much more highly regarded in the industry than the average stringer
because of his experience and had a reputation for nailing the breaking news with angles
no one else could think of.
128

When Maxi is sent to the graveyard shift covering MacArthur Park, the infamous
Los Angeles landmark for notorious gang shootings and other crimes, Tom is given strict
orders by managing editor Pete Capra to secretly watch her back. He gets Maxi a gun
license and teaches her how to use the weapon. He also gets her into self-defense classes.
During her brief time on the graveyard shift, Maxi and the stringer begin to develop
feelings for each other. Unfortunately, there is no happy ending for the two, as she
discovers Tom had been trying to create copycat murders, by researching past crimes so
he would get the story first. In the heat of an assault, Maxi shoots and kills Tom.
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Chapter Eight:
Stereotypes Perpetuated

The word stereotype is a shorthand way to describe a person with collective, rather than
unique, characteristics. To stereotype is, in both a real and metaphorical sense, to lose
sight of the individual.
129

Paul Martin Lester, Susan Dente Ross, Images that Injure: Pictorial
Stereotypes in the Media

Sociologists believe that there are sets of expectations that are ascribed to gender
roles. The media play a crucial role in reinforcing such expectations to the public.
Amanda Rossie, author of Beauty, Brains, and Bylines: Comparing the Female Journalist
in the Fiction of Sherryl Woods and Sarah Shankman, says “popular media, including the
fiction presented [today] continue to frame (in every sense of the word) women within a
narrow repertoire of types that bear little or no relation to how real women live in their
real lives.”
130

Studies have shown that the way women are represented in the media sends
certain messages to the public. When such images are negative and presented over and
over again, they harmfully impact the viewers who take in such images. Scholars of
women in the media Carolyn Byerly and Karen Ross found that women in fiction can be
all, some, or none of the stereotypes traditionally ascribed to women, but that immense
power lies in the hands of the author who can change all or any of the characteristics
based on whim or sudden impulse.
131

Journalists have traditionally played an important role in influencing the public.
Their personas as bearers of the news and models of objectivity change when applied to a
fictional female journalist. In a society that has traditionally expected women to be
docile, soft-spoken, and limited to the domestic sphere, female journalists are able to
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break out of such stereotypes and provide more realistic representations to their
audiences. Because the majority of the public has never come into contact with a
journalist, these images, although fictional provide a window into journalists’ lives and
profession. In fiction, female journalists can be reporters, anchors, Pulitzer and Emmy
winners or they can be hyper-sexualized, passive, incompetent journalists.
132
They come
from all different sides of the spectrum at the author’s whim. Both authors admit that they
drew from their journalism experiences and the people they met in the newsroom.
Dramatizations of the situations they faced and people they met on the job make their
portrayals of female journalists a more accurate depiction than female journalists in
fiction from earlier time periods.
Authors Sparkle Hayter and Kelly Lange set their characters in the cities that
constitute the top television markets in the nation: New York and Los Angeles in the
early 21
st
century. Both settings are considered forward-thinking and ahead of the times.
Protagonists Robin Hudson and Maxi Poole navigate through dominant stereotypes of
femininity personally and professionally. As journalists who carry power and a public
voice, Robin Hudson and Maxi Poole break stereotypes of femininity that expect women
to be limited, complacent, or simply a pretty face in the domestic sphere.
Fiction has traditionally typecast women as mothers or babes, butch or feminine.
By being placed time and time again within narrowly defined categories, women are
prevented from being whole, complex, realistic characters.
133
The stereotypical woman is
one who is dependent on a man for self-fulfillment and economic support.

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Because of the nature of the profession, female journalists, for the most part are
intelligent, assertive, courageous, curious, competent, compassionate, independent,
ambitious, and professional. These characteristics are typically attributed to the cultural
stereotype of the male, often cause unhappiness for the female characters who dare to
deviate from the cultural ideal.
134

Studies of female professionals in fiction show that they are portrayed more
competent and assertive than the typical cultural stereotype of the non-professional
female. Fiction reflects the culturally accepted norm that women cannot successfully
combine a career and marriage.
135
Although such characterizations begin to change and
correspond with women’s status in history, much of those archaic characteristics are still
popular today in fiction despite their no longer being as realistic as they once were.
Robin Hudson series author Sparkle Hayter created characters that reflect the
reality she experienced while working in the newsroom where there were many women
filling high executive positions. Hayter said that she purposely mirrored the real-life
conditions in her fictional prestigious All News Network and the fictional news network
created later in the series that is designed for women, headed mostly by women. Author
Kelly Lange placed her character Maxi Poole in a similar scenario in her fictitious
Channel 6 Newsroom.
According to Amanda Rossie, the new female journalist decides to completely
reject marriage or a relationship in favor of a career.
136
While that may be a newer trend
in “reporter-fiction”, neither Robin Hudson nor any of her female co-workers follows
suit.
50

They are career driven, but do not reject the possibility of sharing their lives with a
significant other, and the possibility of balancing a home and work life. It is a much
more realistic depiction of female journalists today.
Maxi Poole is also a modern woman who puts her career before her love life
following an unsuccessful marriage. Maxi tells herself that she would like to get out in
the dating world again, but that her job requirements and hours make it hard to meet “Mr.
Right.” Both protagonists are strong women who want to find their other half, yet
because of their profession and previous relationships choose to concentrate on their
career until the right man comes along.
Both investigative journalists, Hudson and Poole get to the heart of their stories
by inserting themselves directly into the story. They are constantly, many times
unintentionally at the center of the unfolding action, even when they know it would be
much easier not to be involved. The need to do what is right triumphs over the desire to
do what is easy. Robin’s life is on the line when she is dragged into a plan by evil
scientists and mobsters simply because she tries to return a hat to an elderly man. Maxi is
blackmailed, sent death threats, and poisoned because she offers to let her neighbor’s
housekeeper stay with her until she finds a job. Their natural curiosity as journalists and
kindness get them into trouble time and time again. Finding themselves in many near-
death encounters makes Robin Hudson and Maxi Poole nonchalant about death threats,
menacing phone calls, stalkers, and attackers.
Hayter says her portrayal of Hudson as a journalist is unrealistic in some senses.
Robin is a great journalist in many ways…. [but] she is not representative of the
entire profession.
137

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At the same time, Robin Hudson opens up the possibility that there are other types
of female journalists out there that do not fit a particular mold. A point that has been
reiterated and accurately mirrored in fiction is that journalism is a profession that wreaks
havoc on most personal relationships. Journalists usually end up alone in the big city
without a family, and divorce rates are extremely high.
138
The nature of the job frequently
requires journalists to move around from place to place away from their families.
Although Robin and Maxi have succeeded at the top television markets in the nation,
they pay the price in being lonely and far away from friends and family. Robin has been
staying in New York since graduating journalism school, away from her family in
Minnesota. Maxi has moved to Los Angeles, while her family is in New York. Both see
their pets as the only family they have to help them navigate through lonely times, their
profession, and their complicated love lives far away from home.
I know lots of women who balance work and family well, but it is less
common in the TV news business. Any intense, so-called “glamour
industry” is hard on personal relationships, but journalists watch, read,
write, report terrible news all day, and that adds a dark edge. There aren’t
many functioning long-term relationships in the series.
139

-Sparkle Hayter her characters’ love lives
The same applies to Maxi Poole and other female journalists in the series. Maxi
has trouble keeping a long-term relationship ever since her divorce and colleagues
Christine Williams and Laurel Baker experience multiple unsuccessful marriages and
give up on dating.
Hudson and Poole enter the field of journalism to tell stories and right wrongs.
Although Robin Hudson becomes a familiar face on the news, she never quite reaches the
international celebrity status she wishes for, yet she is relentless, committed, and truth-
seeking no matter the cost.
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Maxi Poole reaches celebrity status and stays true to her values as an investigator using
her fame to solve cases and get answers when others try to keep her from them. Both
women are feminine, good looking, and choose to blaze their own trails.
The Sob Sister
Compassion: Too much of a Good Thing Isn’t Good

Sob sister refers to a “female journalist who specialized in sentimental or human
interest stories, or, more generally, a woman writer ‘who could bring tears.”
140
By 1910,
the term became a derogatory way to refer to any female who was hired to bring in
female audiences with emotional, tear-jerking stories.
141
Although such human-interest
pieces generally did increase female audiences, the term sob sister turned off female
journalists who did not want to be typecast as them as overly emotional writers. In the
Robin Hudson series, almost all the female journalists work in hard news; the few who do
not do so by choice, not because of decreasing viewership.
Compassion still is a stereotype closely associated with female journalists and sob
sisters, but unlike the women in earlier stories whose compassion influenced them to
suppress stories, compassion is what puts Robin Hudson into the heart and action of each
case and murder.
142

Sometimes she wants to be selfish, but she can’t bring herself to walk
away from someone in trouble. I like that she doesn’t commend herself
too much for it--instead she complains to herself about the inconvenience
of having to follow one’s conscience goddamnit. She’s no saint.
143

Sparkle Hayter on Robin Hudson’s character.

53

The female characters in the Hudson and Poole series diverge from prior
stereotypes where females mainly held subordinate positions and did secretarial work or
soft news reporting. At one point, Robin Hudson was on her way to her dream job with
her Washington Correspondent job, but was demoted because she committed many on-air
mistakes that would have likely demoted anyone  male or female.
It is worth noting that her hard work ethic enables Hudson to successfully climb
the ranks once again even though she does not end up with the on-air hard news job she
has always wanted. Robin is a true representative of women successfully reaching high
positions in the media, previously unheard both in fiction and real life.
The image of the female journalist throughout the four periods of fiction that
Donna Born cites tends to be of a compassionate professional. In those periods,
compassion causes conflicts in a woman’s professional career that many times lead to the
loss of professional respect in the newsroom.
144
Compassion, however makes neither
Maxi or Robin weak. In fact, it is what gives Robin an edge on the competition and keeps
her alive when danger is everywhere.

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One of the Boys
In order for women to fit into the newsroom culture previously open only to men,
many female journalists adopted the mentality of their male co-workers to be seen more
as equals. Female journalists took on more “masculine” qualities in order to gain more
respect in the newsroom, a place that did not welcome them in the first place. a place
history.
145

Hayter acknowledges that Robin Hudson has a lot of “male” traits as well.
She is very sexual. Is she overly sexual? I don’t know. She talks about sex
more than most women, but does she think about it more? Want it more?
Robin is a character who, because of her family life, didn’t get the same
social conditioning or learn the social skills most other girls learned, so
she lacks the same self-censorship mechanisms.
146

Sparkle Hayter on Robin’s sexuality

Hudson out drinks her male co-workers, is filthy, and unladylike. She outwardly
expresses her desire to sleep with almost all the men on the network on a regular basis.
Hudson may have characteristics typically attributed to the male stereotype, but her
portrayal is realistic as well.
Maxi looks more like a stereotypical TV reporter than Robin with her good looks
and exquisite fashion choices, but Poole also knows how important it is to put on a tough
front in the news business and prove herself in front of the boys. Her mantra is no matter
how tough times get, never let others see you cry. Maxi knows that being a woman in the
news business is hard and that it is imperative to never let others see you as
weak especially the men. While working on a story on Los Angeles getting a
professional football franchise for the city, Bob Avila, an arrogant sports anchor from
Channel 13 jammed his cowboy boot straight on Maxi’s foot.
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BOB: Hey, Poole, how come they sent a chick out on a guy story? You
could get hurt.
MAXI: And how come you’re such a sexist asshole? Is what she thought.
Hi Bob, is what she said. Maxi had long since learned that it was a whole
lot easier not to cultivate enemies since she was going to run into them in
the future. Small community. (Thankfully the Bob Avilas of television
news made up a small minority).
147

Maxi takes the high road time and again. The news community is so small that
burning bridges is a key consideration. Aside from sexist jabs from Bob Avilas and
joking ones from her editor, she is the one of the most respected journalists at the station
and in Los Angeles.
In Beauty, Brains, and Bylines, Rossie writes:
The higher women climb up the career ladder, the more alone they find
themselves. Male colleagues doubt their intelligence, their skill, and their
ambition. In the newsroom, “the woman is clearly inferior to the male, as
evidenced either by ‘usual’ incompetence or by ‘unusual’ ability for a
woman and by the rarity of women in the profession.”
148

This is completely opposite in the series for Robin Hudson. In an exclusive
interview with Robin Hudson series creator Sparkle Hayter, she says that that portrayal
was not intentional. “I guess I was just unconsciously reflecting the reality: Women have
done exceedingly well in journalism, and television.”
149
The same goes for Maxi Poole
who is constantly recruited by the biggest names in Los Angeles to investigate cases for
them. She is much more than a pretty face. She is at the core a true investigative
journalist who does not flinch at the most gut-wrenching crimes. As much as her editor
does not like to admit that she’s the best to her face, he knows that no one can get the job
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done better than Maxi Poole. Both women acknowledge that there is a need to prove
themselves in a newsroom with the boys, but never try to adopt the mentality of her male
co-workers in order to be taken more seriously. They know that breaking stories and
showing they can do everything just as good as the boys is the best solution.
The Babe
Journalism film scholar Howard Good in Girl Reporter: Gender, Journalism and
the Movies notes that between 1890 and 1930, a trend that emerged in newspaper fiction
was often opposite of the reality of the history of journalism. Good found that even the
most independent female journalists as capable as their male counterparts eventually
succumbed to traditional gender roles.
150
Readers see and read about female news anchors
who are portrayed as attractive blondes with sexy bodies and dimwits. They see female
reporters who only want to cover fashion and lifestyle, not politics or business. They
watch as once strong, hardheaded investigative female journalists leave it all on a
moment’s notice for the life of a homemaker once the opportunity presents itself.
151

Though there is one female journalist in the Robin Hudson series who fit into the dumb
blonde “babe” reporter stereotype, for the most part, the journalists in modern fiction do
not give up everything for marriage at the end like the sob sister. In the Maxi Poole
series, there are no female journalists who fit the earlier stereotypical ‘babe’ mold. The
characters may be good looking, but at the core they are very competent investigative
journalists.

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In a research project, funded by the University of the Basque Country, entitled
“...So What? She’s A Newspaperman and She’s Pretty,” a team of journalists analyzed
104 films and found that there was a negative feedback cycle for female journalists where
beauty is seen as a necessity to succeed in the industry.
There are numerous allusions in films where beauty is seen as a
requirement for working in the journalism profession. In some
cases because the person doing the contracting is a man sensitive
to female attractiveness, he only discovers her talent after first
noticing her charm and looks. Without the latter, her ability would
have no opportunity to show itself. If besides being pretty, she is
intelligent, all the better, but first things first.
152

The Mary Tyler Moore Show, which premiered in 1970, featured journalists set in
a TV newsroom, showed the world of Mary Richards, an idealized single career,
independent woman of the ‘70s. Thirty-something Mary Richards is hired as an associate
producer for TV Station WJM’s Six O Clock News, despite having no experience in the
industry whatsoever.
153
This mirrors Amy Penny’s experience in the Robin Hudson
series. Despite having no prior experience, Penny is asked to come in for an interview
with the All News Network because of her looks. She eventually goes from ex-beauty
pageant winner to television anchor covering feature stories and other “soft news” pieces
despite yearning to one day become a hard-news journalist.
Sparkle Hayter concedes that characters like Penny do exist in real life especially
in television, a visual medium where good looks count.
When I was in news, there was at least one beauty queen journalist with a
degree in “speech communications” for every Columbia or Northwest
grad on air. Beauty alone won’t do it though. You have to be smart and/or
shrewd and charismatic.
154

Not widowed or divorced or seeking a man to support her, Mary Richards was
unlike the stereotype of women before her. Like Robin Hudson and Maxi Poole,
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Richards’s significant other leaves her. Richards, like Hudson and Poole ends up working
in the big city trying to "make it on her own." This now-common concept was rarely
depicted on television in the early 1970s, despite some visible successes of the women's
movement. Thus, The Mary Tyler Moore Show successfully began the trend of female
journalists in popular culture who defied traditional stereotypes on television and with
whom audiences could identify.
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Chapter Nine:
Getting to Know the Journalist, Their Ethics

Robin Hudson, the Journalist

Although mystery, crime, and romance make up a big part of both series, much of
the time the focus is on Robin Hudson and Maxi Poole as journalists on the job. Donna
Born writes, “The stories deal primarily with the problems and concerns of their
professions: becoming a journalist, interviewing or investigating and doing the research
for a story, making professional decisions, and reconciling the image of a journalist with
the traditional image of woman.”
155

The Screw-Ups and the Successes

Promising reporter Robin Jean Hudson was slowly climbing the ranks at the All
News Network until one after another, things started to go wrong. Robin goes from
talented up-and-coming writer for one of the top anchors of ANN to star crime and
justice reporter covering Manhattan murder trials.
156
Unfortunately, within six months
and one too many mess-ups, she goes from Washington correspondent to a measly third-
string reporter at the tabloidesque Special Reports division after telling her boss Browner,
to “fuck off.”
157
He subsequently has ‘bad attitude’ plastered all over her personnel file at
work.
While at Special Reports, Robin goes undercover bringing shoddy conditions and
political scandals to light. Not only does she investigate and report, but she also shoots,
writes, and edits her own pieces. Although her responsibilities include producing her own
news package, Robin is almost always cut out of her pieces in the editing room because
of her poor attitude.
158
Robin is forever disappointed and bitter that she never ended up
with the on-air hard news career she had wanted.
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She was jealous that her peers were mingling with people in high society whereas she
was sneaking around with a hidden camera. She hated going undercover with a hidden
camera because she thought it was dishonest even if necessary at times.
159

Despite her bad luck, Robin moves up the ranks at Special Reports from in front
of the camera to behind as senior executive producer. As much as Robin’s nonchalant
attitude and potty mouth make it seem as if she doesn’t care, she truly has a big heart and
puts others before herself. When she is told to lay off workers at Special Reports, Robin
puts in extra hours to solve a crime in hopes of saving their jobs. Robin may claim that
she has a permanent curse over her head, but she does get handpicked by Spurdle to
become head of programming at the World Wide Women’s Network, a brand-new
network for women. Spurdle later promotes her again, sending her to France to develop
and repackage existing programming.
160

Hudson was demoted from her job as a Washington correspondent when she
belched on live television as she was asking the president a question. It was the first and
last time she was called on to ask a question. It was known as the rippling burp that
carried to half of the globe.
Her second mistake, which ended her hard-news career, asking a woman who
survived a plane crash by eating her dead companion what human flesh tasted like.
Although the woman was very open about the incident, Hudson ended up with the
reputation as being sensational and grotesque. After cursing at her then-boss Greg
Browner, he tries to fire her.
161

61

Her mentor and CEO Jack Jackson had to step in and persuaded the network to give her
another chance. But even Jackson could not get Hudson her old job back reporting on
crime and justice. Instead she was demoted to Special Reports.
Other Faux pas
Hudson’s bad luck strikes whether she is in front of or behind the camera. Despite
her good intention, her hilarious and unintentional mishaps are what make readers fall in
love with the journalist.
A company named Cyrogenic is suing Hudson and Special Reports regarding an
incident where the heads of thirty-five people were kept frozen in hopes of being brought
back to life one day. While Hudson was shooting with her crew, their lighting equipment
caused a meltdown in the facility that ruined the heads.
162

Hudson angered a nation by eating with her left hand at a dinner with a
newspaper publisher in a country where that was a cultural no-no. She also accidentally
referred to a publisher’s wife as his “lovely young daughter” when it was actually his
second wife. She maintains that it was a natural assumption since he was sixty, his wife
was also at the table, and the girl in question was seventeen.
In Russia she brought a dozen roses for the wife of a big television producer.
Even numbered flowers are customarily only brought to funerals.
163

On a business trip to Thailand she angered the Thai president by patting his kids’
heads and mussing their hair, which is considered an offense in Thailand.
164

Robin offend a New York embalmer by asking what his opinion was of having
sex with a corpse in hopes of bringing it back to life.
165

62

She accidentally tripped and pushed the mayor’s face into a bowl of soup when
she was getting up to receive an award at a big dinner.
Despite feeling that being transferred to Special Reports is the end of her career,
Hudson demonstrates her superior journalistic abilities during her time working there.
During one assignment, Hudson and her boss Jerry Spurdle go undercover as
husband and wife at a shady sperm bank. Although Robin Hudson sees herself as
somewhat of a failure once she is demoted, she is the one that ends up getting the job
done and exposing the crooked facility. Hudson convinces the nurse into taking her to the
back of the sperm bank to show off their questionable tactics. Despite the nurse’s initial
hesitation, Hudson’s persuasion tactics are what get the story done. Without her, Special
Reports would not have the incriminating footage shot from the camera hidden in her
purse.
Although compassion is a trait that had been typically seen as weak and
demeaning, compassion is what makes Hudson a cut above the rest. The negative trait
usually associated with a fragile female, is now an empowering characteristic for Hudson.
The reader first sees Hudson’s compassion in What’s a Girl Gotta Do?, during an
interview with the Zander-Tarus family. The Caucasian father is spewing racist remarks
left and right as his wife sits silently with her head down holding their African-American
baby. During the entire interview, Hudson tries to come up with various ways to figure
out how to help the wife run away with her baby boy.

63

Robin’s compassion for others is usually what sucks her into the middle of
murders and is what makes her a good journalist. Although it would be much easier to
ignore her instinct to help people, Hudson’s sense keen sense of getting to the bottom of
every story is what makes her a good journalist.
While others kept reassuring her that her intern, Kathy Loblaws was fine and must
have just forgot to meet up with them, Hudson stops what she is doing and quickly turns
her night into a full-on missing person search because she had a hunch something wasn’t
right. Hudson took it personally. She had promised Loblaws’ mother to take care of her.
Hudson could have easily gone home and relaxed after being exhausted from a business
trip. Instead she sticks to her guts and ends up solving the case and finding her intern.
Whether it be the death or her gynecologist, blackmailer, or someone in need of
help, Robin Hudson gets pulled into the story somehow and is too curious to just let it be.
Her reporting and compassionate instincts to help others always take over.
When Hudson is taken in for questioning about a murder, she decides not to call
her lawyer because she thought that honesty was the best policy. Even though she knew
that anything she said could have been used against her, she decided to risk it.
When a man seemingly accidentally forgets his hat, Hudson goes through great
lengths just to return it to him only to discover that she has accidentally stumbled onto a
plan devised by scientists to create and disseminate a product that would return women to
contented submission and make men stronger and more aggressive.
166
She ends up foiling
the plot.

64

Journalistic Ethics
I’m a journalist. I have to try to stay objective.
167

-Robin Hudson, The Last Manly Man.
Because Robin Hudson and Maxi Poole are fictional characters, they are allowed
to operate by rules that would not be allowed in the real world. The Society of
Processional Journalists’ Code of Ethics states that a journalist should seek the truth,
report it, minimize harm, act independently, and be held accountable. The SPJ Code of
Ethics states that journalists should avoid conflicts of interest, real or perceived; remain
free of associations and activities that may compromise integrity or damage credibility.
168

Both fictional journalists go undercover, pretend to be people they are not in order to
investigate cases, a practice the SPJ does not condone.
In fiction, reporters do not have to attain their information ethically, and
the fictional worlds created for these characters thrive on their ethical
transgressions to keep interest piqued, readers on their toes, and the plot
advancing.
169

Hudson clearly knows what is right and wrong and what the standards of a
journalist are, but there are times she chooses to defy them for the greater good.
According to Analyzing the Images of the Journalist in Popular Culture author Joe
Saltzman, says, “the journalist could lie, cheat, distort, bribe, betray, or violate any ethical
code as long as the journalist exposed corruption, solved a murder, caught a thief, or
saved an innocent.”
170

Despite being told to lay off a story after she becoming part of it, Hudson decides
to ignore her editor and stay on the case. She even tells her friends that it is a conflict of
interest, but that does not stop her. Her breach of journalistic ethics is forgiven by readers
because the case is solved.
65

In another incident, Hudson once again deliberately abuses her journalistic
powers with good intentions. When the paparazzi are on the trail of a persecuted girl that
may turn into an international manhunt, she leads them off, saving many lives. All
Hudson did was call up the paparazzi at a leading tabloid paper and tell them she heard a
rumor that Courtney Love was holed up in a hotel with Ben Affleck and then later send
them a case of black bush whiskey for being wrong.
171
Although the act seems unethical,
she does it for the sake of others.
Maxi Poole, the Journalist

Maxi is an upright citizen. As the most visible face of the news in Los Angeles,
she tries to uphold high journalistic standards. She has multiple Peabody awards and
constantly breaks news on her own simply because she is curious.
When her ex-husband tells her after the fact that he had given parking attendants
and waiters counterfeit twenty-dollar bills just for kicks, she threatened to report him.
172

Although Maxi doesn’t like to break rules, as a journalist she realizes that sometimes she
needs to cross the line in order to get the job done.
When Detective Johnson insists that deranged child star Meg Davis is a murderer,
Maxi busts out a previously tape-recorded conversation to prove otherwise.
I always carry a tape recorder, for my work. That’s carry, as in thrown in
my purse, not strapped to my body, she emphasized…And the ON button
must have got accidentally pushed when it was jostled in my bag.
173

Although she knows the evidence is not admissible in court and is certainly
unethical, Maxi uses it to prevent Meg Davis from being wrongfully accused.
In another instance, Maxi shows her compassionate side when she gets too close
to her sources and to the story she is working on. When her ex-husband’s longtime
66

housekeeper is murdered, Maxi takes in the son of the deceased woman, a sophomore at
Arizona State University and takes care of him until he can get back on his feet. All the
while Maxi is still deemed a suspect in the case. Maxi also ignores her editor when he
takes her off the story for being too close to it. Despite the police, detectives, and her
news station making sure she stays away from the case, Maxi defies them and is able to
put the right culprit behind bars before she and any others are killed.
174

Maxi is a repeat offender when a similar scenario arises in The Graveyard Shift.
When her neighbor, L.A. Councilman Conrad Lightner’s housekeeper’s son is kidnapped,
Lightner fires the housekeeper on the spot leaving her homeless, Maxi takes in Carla
Ochoa and allows her to stay at her house. Not only does she house Carla, but she also
makes a conscious decision not to ask Carla about her citizenship status. Maxi even goes
a step further by setting up a calling system for Carla, instructing her not to answer any
phone call unless it is coming from Maxi. Maxi couldn’t confront Carla’s legality status
because if she knew for a fact that she was an undocumented worker, the law dictates that
she would have to report her to Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Maxi knows that
this is wrong, but she chooses to help the housekeeper.
175

As the kidnapping case progresses, Maxi and bad boy journalist Tom McCartney
illegally break and enter into a trailer where they believe kidnapped toddler Roberto is
being held. When Raoul, the gardener, is taken to jail, Maxi arrives to visit him at the jail
as a private citizen in an attempt to coerce him into giving up the boy’s whereabouts.
“I know that you had the boy in your trailer. I know that, and I have proof.
I haven’t told the police yet. But I will,” she lied.
176

67

Maxi knows that what she is doing is wrong, but is willing to put her career at
risk. Had she gone through regular police channels, precious time would have been lost,
putting Roberto’s life on the line.
“Apparently unsophisticated about his prisoner’s rights, what he didn’t seem
to know was that he could get up and terminate this visit at any time, and that
he could tell one of the guards he was being harassed, if he wanted to. Then
Maxi couldn’t get in here anymore, either as a private person or as a
journalist.”
177

Maxi also breaks the law when Gillian Rose, the country’s largest manufacturer
of vitamins, supplements, and health foods is found dead. Maxi and Gillian had a
symbiotic relationship. For Maxi, the powerful businesswoman was a useful contact; for
Gillian, Maxi Poole was an effective press contact.
178
Gillian had given Maxi and her
Channel 6 crew the code to her building’s express elevator a few years ago to get a quick
sound bite from her on a state bill to regulate dietary supplements. The moment the
murder appears on the wires, Maxi rushes to the scene and uses the code to get into the
building while the rest of the press is locked out by police. Maxi knew that as working
member of the media, she was not allowed to be there. But that did not stop her.
She walked purposefully past desks and cubicles to Gillian Rose’s suite,
then brushed by the unoccupied desk of Gillian’s assistant to the open
door all the way to the crime scene with the yellow tape. The body of
Gillian Rose lay crumpled on the floor.
179

Maxi Poole knows the importance of being friendly to others. When authorities
finally realize she is not supposed to be in the building with Rose’s corpse, she gets
kicked out just as county coroner Sam Nagataki walks in.
“Not now, Maxi. You know better,” he said in terse undertones.
Maxi did know better, of course, but that never stopped her from taking a
shot. As Naga stooped under the tape, he slipped the reporter the slightest
hint of a smile, which signaled to her that of course he’d talk, later.
180

68

As a journalist, Poole also knows that a source is not your friend. When Carter
Rose tries to clear his name in his wife’s murder in an exclusive interview with Maxi
Poole, she puts him on the spot. On live television, she asks him if he was responsible for
killing his ex-wife and an employee. She realizes it will probably be her last exclusive
with the mogul but she does so anyway.
Carter Rose gave her a look that said, how could you throw that at me? I
thought we were friends. She returned his look with a stolid look of her
own. Hers said, sorry there are no friends when we’re talking about a
criminal investigation.
181

When Maxi almost dies while exposing an international scheme, she again goes
from reporting the story to being part of it. After surviving the poisoning, Maxi surprises
media outlets by declining all offers to do print interviews or go on local or national radio
and television shows to talk about her ordeal.
She told each editor and producer that she didn’t march in the parade, she
just reported it.
182

At the end of the day, Maxi is a true old-school journalist who does not care about
fame and fortune. Whereas other reporters would have milked the situation, Maxi does
the opposite. She does, however, make conscious decisions that are not the most ethical.
69

Chapter Ten:
Conclusion

Images of female journalists in fiction have traditionally been farfetched and
unrealistic. This study has analyzed main protagonists Robin Hudson and Maxi Poole, as
well as their notable female co-workers to show a more justified image of the female
journalist in the 21
st
century. At times, Robin Hudson, Maxi Poole, and others fall into
cultural stereotypes that have been perpetuated over time but at others, they break those
norms and redefine what the modern image of the female journalist is.
Compassion sets both heroines apart from the female journalists in the past.
During the 19
th
and 20
th
century, compassion was a trait that characterized women as sob
sisters and amateur journalists. Even the 1930’s fierce, intelligent, fictional reporter
Torchy Blaine drops her career all on a whim for her incompetent boyfriend in the end of
the series. Blaine, the feisty, fast-talking girl reporter who inspired the Lois Lane
character of Superman, is guilty of succumbing to prevalent stereotypes of those times.
183

Although there are fictional characters in the Robin Hudson and Maxi Poole series who
exhibit some of the traditional stereotypes, such as “the babe”, “one of the boys”, and the
“sob sister”, it is important to note that both main protagonists are such strong female
journalists do not completely fall into any of those categories. Hudson and Poole are both
beautiful and fashionable journalists. They reflect the status of women in the 21
st
century
the same way the fictional characters Mary Richards and Torchy Blaine reflected the
status and images of women from their respective time periods.

70

Robin Hudson and Maxi Poole are journalists who diverge from tradition. They
are single, middle-aged career women who question whether having a family is right for
them. For them, the story always comes first. They hear danger and instead of running the
opposite way, they run toward it.
Additionally, the fact that both authors of the series were working journalists who
openly admit their fictional characters are based on their experiences, makes their
characters much more realistic than portrayals of female journalists in the past. Certainly
with that said, the fictional novels are still exaggerated versions of what real journalists
experience on a day-to-day basis. The characters still shine a more accurate light on the
nature of being a journalist. The mere existence of fictional females starring female
reporters as protagonists demonstrates the progress achieved by the women’s movement.
The image of the female journalist in the fiction of Sparkle Hayter and Kelly
Lange provides new understandings of female journalists in the real media workplace
while establishing that a change has undeniably taken place in the 21
st
century.
Unfortunately, both series do not accurately portray the undeniable continued gendered
arena that real female journalists face daily.
Robin Hudson and Maxi Poole differ from fictional female journalists in the past
who had to lose their female qualities to fit in newsroom culture. They are examples of
fierce journalists who can be both successful and feminine. They do not have to wear
pantsuits or take on masculine characteristics to fit in. They solve murders and right
wrongs while wearing skirts and heels, showing 21
st
-century audiences that femininity
and professionalism can go hand-in-hand.

71

Endnotes

1
Chambers, Deborah, Linda Steiner, and Carole Fleming. Women and Journalism. London: Routledge, 2004. p.132
2
Rossie, Amanda. Beauty, Brains and Bylines: Comparing the Female Journalist in the Fiction of Sheryl Woods and Sarah
Shankman. A paper presented to the faculty of the University of Southern California. Los Angeles, CA. 2009. p. 2
3
Born, Donna, “The Image of the Woman Journalist in American Popular Fiction, 1890 to the Present,” Department of Journalism,
Central Michigan University, 1981. p.28
4
Ibid. p.3
5
Ibid. p.7
6
Chambers, Steiner, and Fleming. Women and Journalism 2004. p.1
7
Harp, Dustin. “Desperately Seeking Women Readers: U.S. Newspapers and the Construction of a Female Readership.” Lanham,
MD: Lexington Books, 2007. p.13
8
Ibid. p.13
9
Byerly, Carolyn M., and Karen Ross. Women & Media: A Critical Introduction. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2006. p. 40
10
Born, p.7
11
Hayter, Sparkle. Email Interview. March 8, 2011
12
Ibid.
13
Hayter, Sparkle. Nice Girls Finish Last. New York, NY: Viking, 1996. p.58
14
Hayter, Sparkle. What's a Girl Gotta Do?. New York, NY: Soho, 1994. p.14
15
Hayter, Nice Girls Finish Last 1996. p.237
16
Hayter, What's a Girl Gotta Do? 1994. p.120
17
Hayter, Nice Girls Finish Last 1996. p.3
18
Hayter, What's a Girl Gotta Do? 1994. p.175
19
Ibid. p.229
20
Ibid. p.98
21
Hayter, Sparkle. Email Interview. March 8, 2011
22
Ibid. p.73
23
Ibid. p.11
24
Oriana Fallaci, died of cancer at 77, was a controversial Italian journalist and former war correspondent who, at her death, was
facing charges of vilifying Islam under Italian law following the publication of her book, The Strength of Reason. Via McGrego, Liz,
and John Hooper. “Obituary: Oriana Fallaci,” The Guardian, accessed March 26, 2011,
http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/2006/sep/16/guardianobituaries.italy.
25
Hayter, What's a Girl Gotta Do? 1994. p.12
26
Ibid. p.14
27
Lange, Kelly. The Reporter. New York, NY: Mysterious Press, 2002. p.18
28
Ibid. p.1
72

29
Lange, Kelly. Dead File. New York, NY: Mysterious Press, 2003. p.362
30
Lange, Kelly. Graveyard Shift. New York, NY: Mysterious Press, 2005. p.93
31
Lange, Dead File 2003. p.22
32
Lange, Graveyard Shift 2005. p.315
33
Lange, Dead File 2003. p.71
34
Hayter, What's a Girl Gotta Do? 1994. p.11-12
35
Ibid. p.11-12
36
Ibid. p.103
37
Ibid. p.102
38
Ibid. p.105
39
Ibid. p.107
40
Ibid. p.22
41
Hayter, Sparkle. Revenge of the Cootie Girls. New York, NY: Viking, 1997. p.118
42
Hayter, What's a Girl Gotta Do? 1994. p.60
43
Hayter, Nice Girls Finish Last 1996. p.95
44
Ibid. p.96
45
Hayter, Revenge of the Cootie Girls 1997. p.24
46
Ibid. p.80
47
Ibid. p.81
48
Ibid. p.21
49
Hayter, Sparkle. The Chelsea Girl Murders: A Robin Hudson Mystery. New York, NY: William Morrow, 2000. p.140
50
Hayter. Revenge of the Cootie Girls 1997. p.43
51
Hayter, The Chelsea Girl Murders: A Robin Hudson Mystery 2000. p.72
52
Ibid. p.89
53
Ibid. p.215
54
Hayter, What's a Girl Gotta Do? 1994. p.26
55
Ibid. p.18
56
Ibid. p.5
57
Ibid. p.180
58
Ibid. p.266
59
Ibid. p.23
60
Hayter. The Chelsea Girl Murders: a Robin Hudson Mystery 2000. p.20
61
Ibid. p.17
62
Ibid. p.20
73

63
Lange, Dead File 2003. p.6
64
Ibid. p.2
65
Ibid. p.59
66
Ibid. p.128
67
Ibid. p.6
68
Ibid. p.6
69
Lange, Graveyard Shift, 2005. p.21
70
Lange, Dead File 2003. p.127
71
Lange, Graveyard Shift 2005. p.143
72
Ibid. p.143
73
Ibid. p.194
74
Ibid. p.194
75
Hayter, What's a Girl Gotta Do? 1994. p.11
76
Ibid. p.11
77
Ibid. p.87
78
Ibid.87
79
Ibid. p.88
80
Ibid. p.89
81
Lange, Graveyard Shift, 2005. p. 22
82
Lange, The Reporter 2002. p.70
83
Lange, Graveyard Shift 2005. p.75
84
Ibid. p. 6
85
Lange, Dead File 2003. p. 52
86
Ibid. p. 52
87
Ibid. p. 196
88
Ibid. p.56
89
Ibid. p. 57
90
Ibid. p. 64
91
Ibid. p. 317
92
Ibid. p. 344
93
Ibid. p. 353
94
Hayter, Sparkle. Email Interview. March 8, 2011
95
Rossie, p.40
96
JJ’s Dolls. “Doll To Die For. ” Accessed February 15, 2012, http://www.laurenhenderson.net/tartcity//doll2.html
74

97
Ibid. JJ Dolls.
98
Lange, Dead file 2003. p.30
99
Lange, Graveyard Shift 2005. p.337
100
Hayter, What's a Girl Gotta Do? 1994. p.133
101
Ibid. p.133
102
Ibid. p.136
103
Ibid. p.28
104
Hayter, What's a Girl Gotta Do? 1994. p.149
105
Hayter, Nice Girls Finish Last 1996 p.173
106
Hayter, Sparkle. The Last Manly Man: A Robin Hudson Mystery. New York, NY: William Morrow, 1998. p.131
107
Hayter, What's a Girl Gotta Do? 1994. p.149
108
Ibid. p.123
109
Hayter, The Last Manly Man: A Robin Hudson Mystery 1998. p. 208
110
Hayter, Sparkle. Nice Girls Finish Last. New York: Viking, 1996. p.170
111
Ibid. p.170
112
Hayter, The Last Manly Man: A Robin Hudson Mystery 1998. p. 65
113
Ibid. p. 65
114
Hayter, The Chelsea Girl Murders: A Robin Hudson Mystery, 2000. p.22
115
Ibid. p.167
116
Ibid. p.167
117
Ibid. p.214
118
Ibid. p.183
119
Lange, The Reporter 2002. p.11
120
Ibid. p.19
121
Lange, Dead File 2003. p.164
122
Lange, The Reporter 2002. p.166
123
Ibid. p.123
124
Lange, Graveyard Shift 2005. p.46
125
Ibid. p.10
126
Ibid. p.10
127
Ibid. p.7
128
Ibid. p.20
129
Lester, Paul Martin. Images that Injure: Pictorial Stereotypes in the Media. Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 1996. p.2
130
Rossie, p.13
75

131
Byerly, Carolyn and Karen Ross. Women & Media: A Critical Introduction. p.2
132
Ibid. p.2
133
Rossie, p.13
134
Born, p.4
135
Ibid. p. 6
136
Rossie, 14
137
Hayter, Sparkle. Email interview. 8 Mar. 2011.
138
Rossie, p.31
139
Hayter, Sparkle. Email interview. 8 Mar. 2011.
140
Rossie, p.14
141
Saltzman, Joe, Sob Sisters: The Image of the Female Journalist in Popular Culture, (www.IJPC.org, 2003), p.7.
http://www.ijpc.org/sobsmaster.htm (accessed March 2011).
142
Saltzman, p.7
143
Hayter, Sparkle. Email interview. March 8, 2011.
144
Born, p.26
145
Ghiglione, Loren and Joe Saltzman. “Fact or Fiction: Hollywood Looks at the News.” Image of the Journalist in Popular Culture
(IJPC) (Newseum, Washington D.C., 2005) p.8
146
Hayter, Sparkle. Email Interview. March 8, 2011.
147
Lange, Dead file 2003. p.214
148
Rossie, p.33
149
Hayter, Sparkle. Email Interview. March 8, 2011.
150
Good, Howard. Girl Reporter: Gender, Journalism and the Movies. Lanham, Maryland: Scarecrow Press, Inc, 1998. p.50-51.
151
Rossie, p.1
152
Bezunatea Valencia, Ofa, Maria Jose Cantalapiedra, Cesar Coca Garcia, Aingeru Genaut Arratibel, Simon Pena Fernandez, and
Jesus Angel Perez Dasilva. "...So What? She's A Newspaperman and She's Pretty. Women Journalists in the Cinema." University of
the Basque County 13, No. 25. San Sebastián, Spain, 2008: 221-242.
153
The Mary Tyler Moore Show: The Complete Series. Film. Directed by James L. Brooks. USA: Mgm, 1970.
154
Hayter, Sparkle. Email Interview. March 8, 2011.
155
Hayter, What's a Girl Gotta Do? 1994. p.103
156
Ibid. p.103
157
Ibid. p.102
158
Ibid. p.12
159
Ibid. p.45
160
Hayter, The Chelsea Girl Murders: A Robin Hudson Mystery 2000. p.226
76

161
Hayter, What's a Girl Gotta Do? 1994. p.3
162
Hayter, Nice Girls Finish Last 1996. p.36
163
Hayter, The Chelsea Girl Murders: A Robin Hudson Mystery 2000. p.158
164
Ibid. p.17
165
Hayter, Nice Girls Finish Last 1996. p.205
166
Hayter, The Last Manly Man: A Robin Hudson Mystery 1998. p.221
167
Ibid. p.249
168
Society of Professional Journalists, “Code of Ethics,” Society of Professional Journalists, http://www.spj.org/ethicscode.asp.
Accessed April 22, 2011.
169
Rossie, p.44
170
Saltzman, p.29
171
Hayter, The Chelsea Girl Murders: A Robin Hudson Mystery 2000. p.172
172
Lange, The Reporter 2002. p.98
173
Ibid. p.110
174
Ibid. p.112
175
Lange, Dead File 2003. p.23
176
Ibid. p.271
177
Ibid. p.271
178
Ibid. p.14
179
Ibid. p.15
180
Ibid. p16
181
Ibid. p.85
182
Ibid. p.359
183
IJPC Database of the Image of the Journalist in Popular Culture Project, Accessed March 15, 2011.

77

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79

Appendix A: Novel Summaries

What's A Girl Gotta Do? (1994) by Sparkle Hayter
Once prestigious on-air Washington correspondent Robin Hudson is demoted to a
third-string reporting job the tabloidesque Special Reports where alien abductions and
scandals are considered news. As her co-workers excel in hard news and make contacts
with famous politicians and win Emmys, Hudson can't stop from making on-air mistakes
or giving bad attitude to her superiors. She is either cut from every assignment in the
editing or her lonesome, sexist boss Jerry Spurdle takes credit for her work. But when she
gets blackmailed and accused of murder, her first class reporter instincts save her life and
unravel the truth.
183

Nice Girls Finish Last (1996) by Sparkle Hayter
With one failed marriage, Robin Hudson is working on a new positive mental
attitude so she can give off a better impression at work in hopes of getting promoted back
to covering hard news stories. When her gynecologist is murdered, Hudson and her co-
workers go undercover with hidden cameras to do a Special Reports investigating a link
with the S&M sex-club underworld that ends up being linked to mishaps happening to
her network’s male talent. Despite the police failing to notice the evidence, the clumsy
third-string reporter is able to piece together the truth without getting killed.
183

Revenge of the Cootie Girls (1997) By Sparkle Hayter
Robin Hudson, who has now been promoted to executive producer invites her
new intern along on a girls's night out. When the intern fails to show up, Hudson drops
everything in an attempt to find her, which ends up as a deadly scavenger hunt. She
solves the crime and nearly escapes death.
183

The Last Manly Man (1998) by Sparkle Hayter
What started out as Robin Hudson trying to return a hat to an elderly man has
turned into a search for a mysterious chemical known as Adam One. Hudson
inadvertently puts her life on the line as a secret society sends gangsters to kill her. As
senior executive producer of Special Reports, Hudson puts in extra hours and works extra
hard in hopes that her Man of the Future segment will save her department from being cut
and her workers from being let go. While handling her management position, she
stumbles onto a plan devised by scientists to create and disseminate a product that would
return women to contented submission and make men stronger and more aggressive.
Although she swears she’s too old to be in the field anymore, the case proves too
intriguing and she gets dragged into the action once again.
183

The Chelsea Girl Murders (2008) by Sparkle Hayter
As head of the newly created Women’s Worldwide Network, Robin Hudson
returns from a disastrous PR trip where she ended up offending every culture and place
she visited during her trip. Hudson becomes sucked into an international crisis and nearly
escapes death while solving the crime.
183

80

The Reporter (2002) by Kelly Lange
Feisty, beautiful, Hollywood reporter Maxi Poole of L.A.’s Channel 6 News
inadvertently becomes part of the story when her Oscar-winning ex-husband Jack
Nathanson is found murdered. Although all evidence points to his first wife, a gorgeous
Hollywood actress, Poole is convinced there is more to the story. Using her investigative
skills and insider access, she uncovers a list of possible suspects: a mob-connected film
studio executive, a mentally unstable former child star, and the latest of Nathanson’s ex-
wives.
Poole she realizes her life is on the line as she accidentally becomes part of the
story. Luckily her smart wits help keep the journalist alive and put an end to this case.

Dead File (2004) by Kelly Lange
Maxi Poole is at it again. Instead of sticking to reporting measly entertainment
stories that her editor suggests, she’s trying to get to the bottom of another murder even
after almost losing her life after being stabbed below the throat just weeks before.
This time it’s Gillian Rose, the country’s largest manufacturer of vitamins.
Dressed to the nines as usual, Maxi and her camera crew are determined to get it all on
tape until she finds herself uncovering a dangerous multi-million dollar business deal
where she is next on the hit list.

Graveyard Shift (2005) by Kelly Lange
Despite being one of the most well-known television reporters on Channel 6,
Maxi Poole is now working the graveyard shift from 9 p.m. to 6 a.m.. Not only is the
shift extremely dangerous, it’s also usually a sign for journalists that a pink slip is not too
far away. Puzzled at why her editor would demote her from her number one anchor spot,
she soon realizes that he is using her as bait to smoke out a serial killer who only murders
blondes. The beauty in stilettos now has to learn how to fight and even gets a permit to
use a gun.
But when her neighbor’s housekeeper’s son is kidnapped and the neighbor ends
up dead, Poole stumbles onto a string of peculiar homicides throughout Los Angeles that
has the city living in terror. In typical Poole fashion, the beauty defies orders to stay off
kidnapped Roberto’s case and figures out that her editor is using her as bait to catch a
serial killer. Maxi then finds herself in another deadly situation as she lands herself on the
hit list of the serial killer she’s been investigating.

Abstract (if available)

Abstract This work examines the image of the female broadcast journalist in two series of novels by journalists Sparkle Hayter and Kelly Lange. Using their main protagonists Robin Hudson and Maxi Poole as guides, this paper analyzes and compares their image of the female broadcast journalist in the 21st century. Because images of journalists in fiction have an immense influence on how the public perceives real-life journalists, it is important to examine the fictional characters, how they function within in a predominately male profession

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Asset Metadata

Creator Hang, Kristie Y. (author)

Core Title Heels, microphones, and unlikely heroines: comparing the female broadcast journalist in the fiction of Sparkle Hayter and Kelly Lange

School Annenberg School for Communication

Degree Master of Arts

Degree Program Journalism (Broadcast Journalism)

Publication Date 05/08/2012

Defense Date 05/07/2012

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag broadcast journalism,Female,journalist,OAI-PMH Harvest

Language English

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Advisor Saltzman, Joseph (committee chair), Cody, Michael J. (committee member), Nelson, Bryce (committee member)

Creator Email dimzumm@yahoo.com,kristiehang@gmail.com

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c3-36812

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