"Platinum blond and glamorous as a movie idol, Valeria Plame Wilson set off a storm of clicking camera shutters when she strode into the hearing room."That's David Welna opening his report on Valerie Plame testifying before Congress. What more can you say? So now it's okay to report on someone's appearance when that has nothing at all to do with the substance of the report? At least I can now look forward to NPR's next report on Karl Rove opening with "In walked the double-chinned look-alike for the right-wing drug addict Rush Limbaugh."
Or maybe not...
5 comments:
W T F ? Andrea Seabrook said almost EXACTLY the same thing a couple of days ago, going on about Plame's beauty and how "this time, the Washington rumor mill wasn't wrong" and Plame WAS gorgeous.
Andrea's report also included a nice description of one of the legislators looking almost grandmotherly in her outfit (with full fashion rundown).
Render unto me a break.
My favorite thing was how the story ended with massive unintended irony when Seabrook concluded the story by haughtilly mentioning that when Ms Plame left the room, so did most of the reporters. It never occured to her that she was also one of those shallow media people who didn't care about the story beyond Plame's physical appearance.
Had she stuck around for a few more minutes she might have been able to report on testimony that the white house never bothered to do an internal investigation of the Plame leak, despite being required to by law and despite bush's insistance that it would be done. This didn't seem to be an important story for NPR news.
Most women in the spotlight have their physical appearance analyzed. Why is this? Even Ann Coulter, and I really do not like her at all, is made fun of or lauded for her "looks". Make your arguement about the substance of what she says not about how she looks. Women are more than how they look. So what is Plame is beautiful or dyes her hair or whatever!
I don't think it's exactly unusual that the media should go ga-ga over Plame's looks. Movies and novels have long glamorized the 'beautiful female spy' gimmick. Small wonder that she has the media all flustered. Here, amongst them, is the proverbial 'beautiful female spy', in person! Wowwwwwwww! In the case of Andrea Seabrook though, who isn't famous for her 'network looks', she sounds like she's jealous or something. The 'old' NPR might have been above that sort of thing, but Neocon Public Radio is just as apt to play the pop media card as anyone these days. Besides, Seabrook has never come across as one of the more mature NPR reporters, especially when she subs as a host. And that has little or nothing to do with looks.
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