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Latest Column:
L.A.
Times’ Titillation
Factor
Desperation, or Simply Bad Taste?
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 L.A.
Times’ Titillation Factor
Desperation, or Simply Bad Taste?
[Carol
Platt Liebau] 3/27/06
According
to the recently issued State of the News Media Report 2006:
An Annual Report on Media Journalism, authored by the Project
for Excellence in Media,
prospects for the newspaper industry look grim. Between 2003 and 2005,
it reported, daily newspaper circulation had fallen by 3.5%; circulation
for Sunday editions were down by 1.5%. The losses look worst for the big
city newspapers, according to the report: From September 2004 to September
2005, the top 50 papers in circulation lost a whopping 4.1 % in daily circulation – a
full percentage point worse than the industry average.
Desperation
can make people do ugly things. And it may well be that the
editors at The Los Angeles Times are no exception
to the rule. For over the past month, several stories have
suggested that The Times isn’t above stooping to titillation
in its quest to regain readers.
Contributor
Carol Platt Liebau - Senior
Columnist
Carol
Platt Liebau is editorial director and a senior
member of tOR and CRO editorial
boards. She is an attorney, political analyst
and commentator based in San Marino, CA, and
has appeared on the Fox News Channel, MSNBC,
CNN, Orange County News Channel, Cox Cable and
a variety of radio programs throughout the United
States. A graduate of Princeton University and
Harvard Law School, Carol Platt Liebau also served
as the first female managing editor of the Harvard
Law Review. Her web log can be found at CarolLiebau.blogspot.com [go
to Liebau index]
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Last month, The
Times featured a huge spread
titled “Greatest
of Teese,” profiling Dita Von Teese, a “Burlesque
queen and fetishist” who has supposedly “become fashion’s ‘It’ girl.” The
story notes that she was “known for stripping down to her
pasties while frolicking in an overgrown martini glass,” and
discusses her corset collection, begun when she was “fetish
modeling.” Once upon a time, younger people would have
had to look to Playboy for the discussion of such matters; now,
they can find it blazoned across the front of the Times’ Calendar section.
Just a couple of weeks ago, on the front of its “Health” section,
The Times likewise ran a story on women opting for plastic surgery
on their private parts -- hardly a widespread phenomenon, even
in southern California. The story noted in its subheadline that “the
look many want is that of a porn star.” It then went on
to report that “Across the country, post-pubescent and
peri-menopausal women alike are having their vaginas tightened,
their mons pubis liposuctioned, their labial folds nipped and
their clitoral hoods tucked.” Thank heavens we have the
Times to keep us – and our children – up to date
about such events.
Finally, last week, again on the front of the
Calendar section, readers were informed that “older women like sex.” The
accompanying story referenced “spanking” and “anal
sex,” complete with a quote from an earlier letter by Cosmopolitan magazine creator Helen Gurley Brown, who saw fit to confide that “my
90-year-old playmate and I are still sexually involved — pleasurably,
reasonably frequently."
It’s amazing that American culture has come to a point
where it even needs to be said: These articles are inappropriate
for inclusion in a major metropolitan weekly that’s supposed
to be a family newspaper. Those interested in the fashion preferences
of the former burlesque queen/fetishist or genital plastic surgery
or the sex lives of the fifty-plus set should certainly be able
to read about them. But that’s what “special interest” newspapers
and magazines are for.
It was bad enough when America learned to confront
the term “oral
sex” on the front pages. Even so, President Clinton’s
extracurricular activities in the Oval Office were indisputably
news, and the reporting of them, however unsavory it might have
been, served a legitimate journalistic and public purpose.
The recent stories in The
Times do not. They
are features, conceptualized and selected at the editors’ discretion
from among thousands of other, more wholesome potential choices.
Certainly, the newspaper industry may be in a
funk. But The Times won’t find the answer to its circulation woes by
swapping fair, thorough reporting and features of general interest
for “edgy” articles that seek to titillate, rather
than inform. -ONE-
Columnist
Carol Platt Liebau is a political analyst, commentator and tOR / CRO editorial
director based in San Marino, CA. Ms. Liebau also served
as the first female managing editor of the Harvard Law
Review. Her web log can be found at CarolLiebau.blogspot.com
copyright
2006 Carol Platt Liebau
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