Thursday, November 19, 2009

'The View' Panelists (Except Joy) Slam Newsweek's Palin Cover

It was heartening to see that the panelists on The View -- with the exception of Joy Behar -- put politics aside and agreed that for Newsweek editors to put former GOP vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin on the cover while wearing jogging shorts was demeaning and disrepectful. (The link to a terrible quality video of the segment is here. You have to really punch the volume up to hear it.)

I don't care that Palin originally posed for that photo for Runner's World, a magazine where men and women appear in running attire and in which her photo was in the proper context. She did NOT pose for that photo with the intention that it would be on the cover of a news magazine that parses all things politics and national events. This was just not right and is a naked example of media bias.

Here's the lame explanation offered by Newsweek's editor Jon Meacham:

"We chose the most interesting image available to us to illustrate the theme of the cover, which is what we always try to do. We apply the same test to photographs of any public figure, male or female: does the image convey what we are saying? That is a gender-neutral standard."

Sorry Mr. Meacham, I'm not buyin' it. You wouldn't be doing this to Hillary Clinton or Michelle Obama or Nancy Pelosi.

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