Austin360 blogs > TV Blog > Archives > 2009 > October > 27 > Entry
A former staffer takes Letterman to task
Nell Scovell, a former writer for David Letterman, is the latest person to come forward and throw her 2 cents into the embattled late-night talker’s sexpoitation controversy. Scovell airs her complaints in a Vanity Fair essay, according to eonline.com. The site says the piece “paints her late ’80s tenure on his NBC Late Night show as one marred by uncomfortable tension, hostile environments and sexual favoritism.”
Scovell also decried the lack of female writers on the show and claims she does not want compensation, revenge nor Letterman’s downfall, eonline reports. “I just want Dave to hire some qualified female writers and then treat them with respect.”
I just attended a panel at the 2009 Austin Film Festival in which comedy writers Chuck Sklar and Dan French revealed that none of the late-night talk shows’ writers rooms has a strong female presence. They seem, in fact, to most resemble middle-school boys’ locker rooms.
Scovell’s other accusations aside, the lack of female writers hardly seems particular to Letterman.
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