Andrea Thompson.

Andrea Thompson made headlines when she recently revealed that she was quitting ABC's "N.Y.P.D. Blue" to do a three-month tryout at the CBS affiliate in Albuquerque, N.M. to become a TV anchorwoman. The 39-year-old, Ohio-born actress has said that she believes her skills as an actress are transferable to TV news, even though she does not have any background in journalism.

KTLA-TV Channel 5 anchorwoman Terry Anzur, who is also a journalism professor at USC's Annenberg School for Communication, said Thompson won't have an easy time making the switch from make-believe to reality, especially when it comes to credibility with the audience.

"It's not a matter of acting the news," Anzur said. "It's hard to fake a journalism background if you don't have one. My question is, what will she do as an anchor when there's a SWAT-team standoff with a child molester and she has to ad lib without libeling someone on the air? As a journalist, you have to know what to do in your bones. There is no staff of writers who's going to produce a script for you. It wilt be tough."

Joe Saltzman, Annenberg School's assistant dean, isn't dismayed by Thompson's attempt at a midlife career change. "Readers are readers," he said in describing what anchors primarily do. "It doesn't take any journalism skill to read, and most stations want an appealing person -- so why not have a pretty person reading copy? Most anchors don't write their own copy, or shouldn't."