Rhinocrisy

I have a new job in a fancy newsroom full of murmurs into phones and the perpetual pitter patter of keyboards and dozens of flat-screen TVs hanging from ceilings blazing with the overpowering light shows of CNN, MSNBC, Sky TV, and of course Fox News. As the day goes on, I sometimes zone out gazing at one or another monitor to see what the networks consider to be important.

Friday Fox News carried a lengthy report about the possibility that Victoria’s Secret might be marketing to teens. Unbelievable, isn’t it? That a maker of women’s lingerie would try to sell it to the women most insecure about their bodies and most susceptible to marketing messages? The ones at the beginning of their brand-loyalty lives? Shocking — almost as shocking as Crest toothpaste marketing to teens, or Fox News marketing to teens.

This story struck me as funny because the anti-porn do-gooder being interviewed, Janice Crouse of Concerned Women for America, was, compared to the usual fake-tan pankcake makeup broadcast babes incredibly homely. I’m sure she was motivated by a real concern that young women receive too many messages promoting early sex. Which is a fair concern, even if her group deals with the issue in ridiculous ways. She was also on-screen for less than a quarter of her interview. The entire time she was talking, the network was playing tape from the Victoria’s Secret fashion show. It cracked me up that Fox was able to use supposedly moral scolds as a medium for their only cleavage of the day.

Meanwhile, American liberals are all upset because the mass media, which includes me, is not spending as much energy on the Bush Administration scandals as it did on Clinton’s blowjob. The thing they don’t understand is that Fox never cared about Clinton one way or the other. They don’t DO politics. TV news producers couldn’t care less who’s in the White House, so long as it’s exciting. Clinton’s routine good governance and feel-good speeches might have brought in some viewers. But every good producer knows that there’s nothing like boobies.