Former CBS News reporter Jane Wallace has taken on one of her toughest assignments yet: distinguishing her new talk show from among the myriad other day-time televison gabfests.
Wallace has said she intends to win an audience for her Lifetime cable network program with a no-nonsense approach to women`s issues, and the first weeks of her show seem to indicate she`s sticking to her vision.
”We won`t be doing the sensational, tabloid topics that prey on women`s fears, such as infidelity or cellulite,” says Wallace.
”We want to provide informational television that helps women grow and feel better about themselves.”
For example, Wallace has taken women`s magazines to task-editors for Self, Seventeen and Working Mother recently were guests-about the mixed messages they send women; printing articles about self acceptance and fitness, but continuing to promote unrealistic standards of beauty with ultra-thin models.
Wallace, who spent six years at CBS, says she`s enjoying shedding the mantle of unbiased reporter. ”I like not having to be so tough anymore.”
A less frenetic pace also has afforded a chance for the 34-year-old Yale University graduate to restore some balance to her life, formerly fraught with intense travel and deadline demands.
”Someday I would like to have children and I realized I was going to have to make some fundamental changes in my work schedule,” says Wallace, who is single.
Though it remains to be seen how the daily hourlong ”Jane Wallace Show” (which airs locally at noon), will fare with viewers, Wallace says she`s already won over her toughest critic, her 93-year-old aunt.
”Aunt Martha told me it`s the first time she has seen me be myself on TV,” Wallace says.
Her aunt, who never married, taught her niece that women could be self-supporting and free to pursue whatever they wanted. It is a message Wallace hopes to share with her viewers.
”I want women to know it`s a tough ticket out there, and that they are not alone,” Wallace says.
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