{"id":1723,"date":"2009-10-29T00:44:51","date_gmt":"2009-10-29T04:44:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/000af36.netsolhost.com\/wordpress1\/2009\/10\/29\/baring-all-for-science\/"},"modified":"2009-10-29T00:44:51","modified_gmt":"2009-10-29T04:44:51","slug":"baring-all-for-science","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/2009\/10\/29\/baring-all-for-science\/","title":{"rendered":"Baring All for Science"},"content":{"rendered":"

Exposing a woman\u2019s breasts on mainstream media programs is not supposed to happen, short of a \u201cwardrobe malfunction.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

But in a four-part report on [breast cancer] beginning Thursday night, WJLA, Channel 7 in Washington, will break TV’s unspoken taboo by showing two women fully exposed on its late-afternoon and evening newscasts. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The station claims there isn\u2019t enough, ahem, detail shown about how women should examine their breasts to catch the cancer early.  Oh, OK.  Well, if there\u2019s a good reason\u2026.  In fact, there is a really, really, very good reason.<\/p>\n

\n

The reports will air on the first two days of TV’s traditional "sweeps" month, a period in which stations air their most eye-catching stories to boost ratings that are used to set advertising rates.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Eye-catching, indeed. Nonetheless, station manager Bill Lord said that\u2019s just a coincidence.  And besides,<\/p>\n

\n

Lord said he did not expect many viewer complaints, in part because the reports will be preceded by "viewer discretion" disclaimers. Further, he said, WJLA’s 5 p.m. newscast follows "The Oprah Winfrey Show" and its 11 p.m. newscast on Thursday follows the ABC medical drama "Private Practice," both of which have audiences largely made up of women. On Friday, the 11 p.m. news follows "20\/20," a news program that has an older following. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\u201c[A]udiences largely made up of women\u201d?  Not those nights, baby.  And the guys won\u2019t be complaining.<\/p>\n

Reportedly, next ratings period, the station is going to demonstrate, in detail, how you can catch syphilis. (OK.  That\u2019s not true, but I\u2019ll let you know if the station calls me to thank me for the idea.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Exposing a woman\u2019s breasts on mainstream media programs is not supposed to happen, short of a \u201cwardrobe malfunction.\u201d But in a four-part report on [breast cancer] beginning Thursday night, WJLA, Channel 7 in Washington, will break TV’s unspoken taboo by showing two women fully exposed on its late-afternoon and evening newscasts. The station claims there… Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[136],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1723"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1723"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1723\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1723"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1723"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1723"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}