Well, if people have trouble listening to her, then it does. But so what if some folks don’t want to listen to old people? You act like age discrimination, in your personal life, is some crime.
There’s also the little matter of having been arrested for heroin possession. Besides, he’s a NIMBY environmentalist. He did publish an anti-vax conspiracy piece in Rolling Stone.
Then they should get over it. At the very least they shouldn’t be advocating that someone doing a perfectly good job should be fired over it.
The fact is that Rehm does do her job very well and her voice does not interfere with her performance. She does it as well as she always has. The fact that there might be a few people who are so shameless as to say something that amounts to “I don’t like listening to old people’s voices” doesn’t chance that.
This is hearkening back to the days when air hostesses were fired for getting married or teachers had to quit when they got pregnant.
Everyone gets old and at some point they sound old. That should be a factor in their careers. Hell, Andy Rooney stayed in broadcasting practically up until his deathbed. Roger Ebert has appeared on TV when he doesn’t even have a voice box. People get old, they get unwell. So long as they are able to convey information, it’s outrageous to actually advocate that they be fired for such a shallow reason.
To me, someone saying, “Diane Rehm shouldn’t be on the radio because she sounds too old” is no different than “Dave Chappelle shouldn’t be on TV because he looks too black” or “Christiane Amanpour shouldn’t be a reporter because she’s too feminine” or “Anderson Cooper shouldn’t be on TV because he talks too gay.”
I haven’t been the subject of age discrimination personally. But that doesn’t mean I or you or anyone else won’t at some point. We’re all going to get old, so we should view every instance of age discrimination as if it is happening to us, personally.
By the way, there is a federal law that prohibits age discrimination in employment.
I doubt many people are lining up to make this claim. I like Ms. Amanpour, but lately she looks a lot like Fred Armisen.