There were a lot of good and interesting points in that article, but thank you for linking it for this:

It’s not really the content of that scene that bothers me, it’s the tone. This is not news to anyone—the idea that, even more than men, women in broadcast news are judged on their looks. But what was really missing from that scene was a sense of camaraderie between women who recognize this unfortunate truth with a sense of rueful regret. That wasn’t the vibe at all. To me, it was, “Well, here’s how things are, and that’s pretty much fine. When can you start?” That was jarring, and also a missed opportunity to establish any kind of interesting relationship between two characters.

That's it! God, that scene bugged me and I could not for the life of me figure out what exactly felt off. I was going, "Well, it's realistic, women are judged far more than men based on appearance, especially on TV, but something just feels strange..." and that's exactly what it was. The tone of that scene was all wrong. Man, I am so glad I read that because it was annoying me like nothing else that I couldn't figure it out.