With this week’s official announcement that Meredith Vieira will be leaving NBC’s Today Show, the news got me thinking about our attachment to TV news personalities and the role they play in our daily lives.
When Meredith emotionally announced her decision to leave Today, we shared her emotion wholeheartedly. The sadness she demonstrated felt genuine and raw, and no doubt her fans ‘ myself included ‘ felt sadness of our own in this moment. Sadness which turned to nervousness as we immediately thought ‘Who will replace her?’?
We put a certain level of faith and trust in the people who deliver our news, inviting these people into our homes day after day, night after night. They share in our excitement as we experience joyous events like the recent royal wedding, and they share in our heartbreak when something unthinkable happens like the attacks on September 11th. At the best of times and the worst of times, we get to know our anchors as news unfolds. We uncover their personalities in the midst of their reporting, and they become our comrades.
So it’s no wonder that when there’s a change in regime, we as the viewer are wary about who will take the empty seat. We are loyal to our friends, and we prednisone 50mg don’t want to have to start over and make new ones.
Luckily in this case, we won’t have to. In a not-that-surprising second announcement, we learned that Ann Curry would be filling Meredith’s shoes. Personally, I was slightly relieved. Ann’s familiar, making the transition and loss of Meredith much more tolerable. She’s already a part of our friend circle, albeit perhaps not our BFF.
Change is, of course, inevitable. I’ll miss drinking my coffee every morning with Meredith but, as in life, friendships change and sometimes we must say goodbye. And sometimes saying goodbye to one friend allows us to grow closer to another. To that I say, welcome to my inner circle, Ann Curry.
