A news anchor has hit back at an anonymous viewer who wrote to her expressing “concern” about her alleged weight gain.
Marcella Raymond, who has appeared on screen for Chicago's WGN-TV for 18 years, posted the anonymous note on her Facebook page, remarking: “Got this lovely letter from a viewer this morning.”
It reads:
Marcella,
You are an excellent reporter. Content is no problem. You have good broadcast skills and are a good communicator.
However, please allow me to point out (with great respect) that you have gained too much weight. Being heavier than you probably want to be does present a message to the viewer: this person is not able to discipline herself in a visual medium. It interferes with your real message when reporting.
You know as well as anyone that the TV news game is a young person’s business. Being overweight makes people look older than they actually are and an overweight body takes its toll on the actual aging process, especially facially. At the very least, television is a visual medium and its performers (and each reporter IS, to a degree, a performer) should put forward their best visual presence.
I hope you can discern from this unusual letter a clear sense of concern. That’s it, only concern. It’s hard enough to keep jobs in TV; why make it more difficult on yourself? At some point, management will view your being significantly out-of-shape as a reflection of your not caring or not ‘keeping your house in order.’
The note has gone viral with many expressing support towards Raymond and astonishment at the content of the unnamed poison-pen’s missive.
Raymond, 50, called into WGN Radio to discuss the “passive aggressive letter”, which she personally believes is from a woman.
She said: “I don’t even know you, you have no idea what’s going on in my life, you don’t know if I have a medical condition that’s made me gain weight, have I been really depressed, did I lose somebody?”
Calling the so-called “concern” expressed by the writer a “a bunch of crap”, Raymond continued: “I don’t think reporters should be looked at in the same category [as supermodels]. Our main job is not to wear a swimsuit or to look like a beauty queen. Our main job is to deliver the news in the best way we can so that people will watch and they’re getting informed and it’s not about being the prettiest girl on TV.
“It’s too much work, it’s not that important to me anymore, there are other things I wish to spend my time thinking about doing than stressing over losing 20lbs.”
Raymond says she has been touched by the outpouring of support and in particular is pleased at the number of people who recognise it as rude and not a sentiment they would ever inflict upon someone.
She added: “I’m comfortable enough in who I am and I know I would like to lose some weight eventually but it’s for me not for anybody else.”