Letters to the Editor
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"I am firmly behind a skirt..."
Wow, sounds like something you'd say in a bar with your buddies after work, not live on the air during a news program. But at Fox News, what's the difference?
I've always found the camera focus on women's bodies during news clothes to be absurd. The other day I caught just a few moments of the Lou Dobbs newshour, and his female co-host (who is sort of masculine looking) was framed in a way to show her skirt and crossed legs, while of course Dobbs had a desk or something blocking his lower half.
Then there's CNN's Robin Meade in the morning, who often has interview segments where she sits in a skirt and shows off her legs. Sure she's hot, and that's part of the whole point of her show, but....come on.
Media Matters humorously highlighted a Fox News segment (or was it CNN?) over a year ago where there was a split screen and on one side was a male commentator and on the other side a female. It started with both people's heads framed exactly the same, from about the top of their head to below their collarbone. Then, a few seconds later, you see the camera awkwardly zooming back from the woman, readjusting its frame to include her boobs/cleavage. It was quite obvious what the switchboard director was up to (camera operators don't just zoom back out of the blue -- they do what they're told to do).
Is this 2008 or 1955?