Former Anchor Blasts Beauty Queen Anchor Hire

As FTVLive told you, WACH in Columbia, SC hired Bree Boyce a former Miss South Carolina as the station's new news anchor.

Not everyone thinks tat was such a wise move. 

Like former anchor and managing editor at WACH, Mike Woolfolk.

Boyce tells Broadcasting and Cable that It seems to feed the notion that it’s okay for a main co-anchor of a newscast to have no other credentials but a pretty face and a pageant title.

Woolfolk says he’s never met Boyce, but he believes her hiring sends the wrong message to aspiring journalists:

"My frustration is rooted in the poor messages this hire sends to the community and to all of the aspiring young broadcast journalists spending tens of thousands of dollars of their money, their parents’ money, scholarship dollars and grants to get formal training for a career that apparently requires only a certain level of celebrity and beauty to obtain. Students, forget about all that crap your college professors and other professionals who visited your classes told you about “paying your dues” or “having to cut your teeth in Podunkville, USA” before you get the chance to anchor a newscast in a place like Columbia, or better. Don’t worry about learning the craft or gaining experience. Just go out and do something that garners you major attention because those are the people television station general managers favor for anchor slots- one of the most high profile and significantly important jobs in the newsroom– over formally trained and experienced journalists."

Boyce started last night as the station's Anchor.