In The Eye Of The Beholder?

You've come a long way on television news, baby.

Or have you?

While admittedly amusing, all the attention paid recently to Greta Van Susteren's eyes and Paula Zahn's sex appeal is a depressing reminder of how often journalism comes second to appearance on television news.

Fox News Channel personality Van Susteren couldn't stop talking last week about the cosmetic eye surgery that rendered her almost unrecognizable. Last month, Zahn was featured in a CNN promotion that described her as "just a little bit sexy."

Veteran "60 Minutes" correspondent Lesley Stahl remembers being depressed when she would break a story and get five letters from viewers in response complaining that her skirt was too short - or a call from her mother saying she needed a haircut.

Now she just accepts it.

"It's the way it's always been," Stahl said. "The one big difference since I've been around, and I was hired by CBS in 1972, is that whatever the women have to put up with, the men do, too."

Anyone who thinks otherwise probably believes Bill Hemmer is a weekday anchor on CNN strictly on his journalistic credentials.

"The men feel just as much pressure as the women to keep up," Stahl said. "We may even be a little luckier. The stigma for a woman to wear a lot of makeup and get her hair done three times a day doesn't exist. For a man, it's still a little embarrassing. But they're doing it."

Geraldo Rivera - to no one's great surprise - was a pioneer in public cosmetic surgery for men. Twice he went under the knife on his syndicated talk show. In 1992, he had fat removed from his buttocks and injected into his forehead. Four years later, he got an eye job.

Television consultant Al Primo, creator of the local "Eyewitness News" format, remembers his shock in the early 1960s when the male anchor at a local station where he worked got an eye job.

Now he wouldn't turn his head.

"Our whole industry has become a part of show business," he said. "We are an industry that uses the same tools they use to make a movie or a comedy show - lights, cameras, an actor and a script."

It isn't exactly a secret that sex appeal is considered a winning trait for a news anchor. Why else would there be a popular Web site that features attractive actors reading the news while they methodically undress until totally nude?

Zahn's "sexy" ad ran briefly one weekend on CNN before it was yanked by embarrassed executives. It drew plenty of knowing chuckles in newsrooms across the country.

"The focus on appearance has always been part of the talk behind the scenes of journalism," said Kathleen Hall Jamieson, dean of the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania. "What happened to Paula Zahn is, it leaked to the public."

CNN's new "star power" strategy has left it vulnerable to criticism. Last year, CNN Headline News hired former "NYPD Blue" actress Andrea Thompson as a newsreader, despite limited experience, then kept a stiff uper lip when nude pictures of her turned up on the Internet.

MSNBC's Ashleigh Banfield has drawn more public attention for her hairstyles and eyewear than her journalism. She's expressed frustration about it, but the distinctive look has helped send her on a fast path to stardom.

Zahn, 45, expressed horror at the CNN promotion and has tried to put the story behind her ever since. Van Susteren, 47, hasn't shied away from the attention.

Her eye job became a story because the first post-surgery pictures of her that appeared on Fox showed such a dramatic change, and because the brainy lawyer had always seemed a refreshing counterpoint to the obsession with looks.

"Did you know that I'm the only one who's ever had this done?" she said sarcastically to Comedy Central's Jon Stewart, part of a media tour that included "Good Morning America," "The O'Reilly Factor" and a People magazine cover.

"It was either the eye surgery or get picked up for shoplifting to get PR for the show," she said to Stewart.

Guess what? It worked. An estimated 1.6 million viewers watched her premiere on Fox, nearly double the crowd tuning in to CNN at the time and also about twice what Fox averaged in the time slot in January.

There are some positive signs lost in the lipgloss and unlined skin. There's a far greater range of looks and ages among women on the air than back in 1983, when 36-year-old Christine Craft sued a Kansas City station for firing her as a news anchor because she was too old and too ugly.

Suggest that she tart herself up, and CNN's Christiane Amanpour is likely to smack you.

"It's become irrelevant," said Susan Zirinsky, executive producer of "48 Hours" on CBS. "It feels silly. Those of us of a certain age, we don't want to look like Greta Van Susteren. It took a long time to get these road miles on my face. I'm proud of them."

Zirinsky, it should be noted, works behind the camera. Not in front of it.

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