A voyeur surreptitiously videotaped a woman undressing in her hotel room and then posted it on the Internet. Someone recognized her as ESPN's Erin Andrews, "America's Sexiest Sportscaster," and the peephole video went viral. That brings us to today, with the press righteously railing against this violation of one of their own. Only, they're condemning it while also broadcasting stills from the illegally-shot video.
The cover of the New York Post features a large screen shot of a naked Andrews with wee little black box covering her nipples, leaving the top and bottom of her breasts for public viewing. The tabloid has also provided a photo gallery on its Web site that reveals nearly all of the broadcaster's butt. Fox News surely wasn't going to miss out on the fun: The network "repeatedly showed Andrews' face while covering some of her body parts with lacy red tape," reports Media Matters. CBS' The Early Show even played a portion of the tape with some selective blurring.
Of course, there are many degrees of potential hypocrisy in covering this story. Clearly, those mentioned above register at the highest level, but what about Gawker, which made fun of the Post's hypocritical indignance ... while also publishing a snapshot of the tabloid's cover? Is there a way to bring light to the media's offenses against Andrews without also contributing to the violation? Sure, I haven't linked to the material, but some readers who hadn't heard about the video before will now be inspired to search for it. The best I can do is to offer this legitimate (I promise) warning: The video is being used as a lure to get people to download a nasty computer virus. Happy Googling!
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