An anchorperson is the person who sits in the TV studio, reads the news, and brings in reports from other places. They hold the whole programme together. English already had anchorman for this job. The picture is like a ship’s anchor: the person who stops the show from drifting. Later, people wanted a word that does not say “man,” so they built anchorperson from anchor + person, the way chairperson was built. In everyday talk many people now just say anchor. Anchorperson sounds a little careful and official; you meet it in job titles and in writing that is trying to be fair about gender. It is mainly a TV word. On the radio, people more often say presenter or newscaster, though the jobs overlap.

新聞主播