Roy Hobbs
Jun 6th 2008, 08:01 AM
Just saw this item from the Chicago Tribune. Sad.
Ex-anchor grows into life without news
Mary Schmich
April 6, 2008
You may not have thought about MacLennan in a while. That's the fate of news anchors. When they're big, they're huge. When they're gone, the viewers' memories of their names and faces grow as fuzzy as a TV without cable.
I thought about MacLennan last week with the announcement that Channel 2 was letting go of Diann Burns and Mary Ann Childers, names as well-known in Chicago as MacLennan's once was.
One night in February 2003, MacLennan said a brief goodbye on air and, after 16 years on Chicago TV, vanished from the screen, nudged aside to make room for a new 10 p.m. anchor: Diann Burns.
"It was not of my choice," MacLennan said.
If you lived in Chicago from 1987 until 2003, you knew MacLennan. She arrived at Channel 2 from Toronto at the age of 30, a mix of fresh, smart and saucy, a media-certified hot babe. Her dates made the gossip columns. So did her marriage and her three pregnancies, the last one at 43. She was famous, but always in that down-to-earth Canadian way. "People watched me grow up," she said.
She started out working with Bill Kurtis, one of Chicago's anchor kings. For a while, she and Lester Holt anchored the newscasts at 4:30, 5, 6 and 10 p.m. When Antonio Mora joined her on the anchor desk, media critics fluttered about their chemistry.
"Once in a while," MacLennan said, "someone still stops to say, 'I remember watching you. Would you ever think of coming back?' Inside I think, 'I never thought of leaving.' "
But bosses change and anchors age and markets shift. She left and, at 46, found herself deprived for the first time as an adult of the daily adrenaline jolt of the news business.
One of her colleagues sent her a UPS package filled with goodbye letters from viewers. She still hasn't had the heart to open it.
She moved with her family to a North Shore suburb. She got involved in her kids' schools. She got serious about photography and sells some of her landscapes.
"I make enough to pay for batteries, paper and a new lens once in a while," she said.
Little by little, she has adjusted not just her routine but her identity.
"Some of it is gratifying," she said. "Some of it's . . ." She hesitated. "It's different."
When she learned about the technology and broadcasting club at one of her son's schools, she phoned the principal, said her name was Linda MacLennan, that she used to be an anchor at Channel 2, could she help with the club? She never heard back.
She rarely watches the 10 p.m. news now, but her mother-in-law phoned her last week to tell her about the Channel 2 purge. She was in Toronto with her own mother, who was recently diagnosed with cancer.
"Mary Ann and Diann were my direct competitors," she said, "but in the last few days I genuinely feel empathy for them. It's brutal."
MacLennan hasn't talked about these past few years publicly, but she talked about them Friday with thoughtful good humor.
Lately, she said, she has found new reasons to appreciate her unchosen freedom. It gives her time to help care for her mother. Her kids are 14, 12 and 8. She likes being there to help them. And it's a relief not to be bombarded with critiques on her clothes and hair.
"Though in some ways I miss that pressure," she said. "I probably would look better."
She's been away from the news machine long enough that the idea of going back is daunting.
"But if the call went out to all of us former anchors to see if we'd be interested in going back to daily news," she said, "you'd see us all lined up."
Ex-anchor grows into life without news
Mary Schmich
April 6, 2008
You may not have thought about MacLennan in a while. That's the fate of news anchors. When they're big, they're huge. When they're gone, the viewers' memories of their names and faces grow as fuzzy as a TV without cable.
I thought about MacLennan last week with the announcement that Channel 2 was letting go of Diann Burns and Mary Ann Childers, names as well-known in Chicago as MacLennan's once was.
One night in February 2003, MacLennan said a brief goodbye on air and, after 16 years on Chicago TV, vanished from the screen, nudged aside to make room for a new 10 p.m. anchor: Diann Burns.
"It was not of my choice," MacLennan said.
If you lived in Chicago from 1987 until 2003, you knew MacLennan. She arrived at Channel 2 from Toronto at the age of 30, a mix of fresh, smart and saucy, a media-certified hot babe. Her dates made the gossip columns. So did her marriage and her three pregnancies, the last one at 43. She was famous, but always in that down-to-earth Canadian way. "People watched me grow up," she said.
She started out working with Bill Kurtis, one of Chicago's anchor kings. For a while, she and Lester Holt anchored the newscasts at 4:30, 5, 6 and 10 p.m. When Antonio Mora joined her on the anchor desk, media critics fluttered about their chemistry.
"Once in a while," MacLennan said, "someone still stops to say, 'I remember watching you. Would you ever think of coming back?' Inside I think, 'I never thought of leaving.' "
But bosses change and anchors age and markets shift. She left and, at 46, found herself deprived for the first time as an adult of the daily adrenaline jolt of the news business.
One of her colleagues sent her a UPS package filled with goodbye letters from viewers. She still hasn't had the heart to open it.
She moved with her family to a North Shore suburb. She got involved in her kids' schools. She got serious about photography and sells some of her landscapes.
"I make enough to pay for batteries, paper and a new lens once in a while," she said.
Little by little, she has adjusted not just her routine but her identity.
"Some of it is gratifying," she said. "Some of it's . . ." She hesitated. "It's different."
When she learned about the technology and broadcasting club at one of her son's schools, she phoned the principal, said her name was Linda MacLennan, that she used to be an anchor at Channel 2, could she help with the club? She never heard back.
She rarely watches the 10 p.m. news now, but her mother-in-law phoned her last week to tell her about the Channel 2 purge. She was in Toronto with her own mother, who was recently diagnosed with cancer.
"Mary Ann and Diann were my direct competitors," she said, "but in the last few days I genuinely feel empathy for them. It's brutal."
MacLennan hasn't talked about these past few years publicly, but she talked about them Friday with thoughtful good humor.
Lately, she said, she has found new reasons to appreciate her unchosen freedom. It gives her time to help care for her mother. Her kids are 14, 12 and 8. She likes being there to help them. And it's a relief not to be bombarded with critiques on her clothes and hair.
"Though in some ways I miss that pressure," she said. "I probably would look better."
She's been away from the news machine long enough that the idea of going back is daunting.
"But if the call went out to all of us former anchors to see if we'd be interested in going back to daily news," she said, "you'd see us all lined up."