The hype behind the headlines
The reaction to Janet Jackson's breast has once again proved the conservatism of the American media. For anyone who still hasn't seen Jackson's breast (complete with decorative pierced nipple shield), the story goes like this.
The Superbowl is America's most watched TV event, attracting 140m viewers, and commanding advertising revenues of £1.3million. During a halftime skit, Justin Timberlake and Janet Jackson performed a version of 'Rock your body', which ended with Timberlake exposing her right breast on the line, 'I wanna have you naked by the end of this song'.
Outrage ensued. The phone lines of the station were jammed, complaints poured in, the media frothed at the mouth - covering the story but declining to show the offending breast itself. Justin Timberlake tried to deny responsibility, blaming a "wardrobe malfunction".
A "classless, crass and deplorable stunt," screamed Michael Powell, head of the Federal Communications Commission, raising the possibility of an official enquiry.
Now is it just me, or is an official enquiry a tad excessive? As Rick from the Young Ones once said, they're called breasts, and everybody's got them. (This is the point where I could indulge in some hilarious Hutton wordplay on whitewashing Janet's breasts, but I'll leave you to write your own joke.)
Worse than that, in an example typical of the increasing power of the Christian Right, the fallout has caused ER to censor a medical scene showing an elderly patient's breast. The trouble with this kind of Puritanism is that it only increases interest in the forbidden flesh: Lycos says that in one day the mishap received three times as many searches as the last US election, and four times as many as the Iraq war.
So are the papers failing their readers by refusing to cover the topic? It would seem so, as the internet gains ever more importance in fulfilling the news needs of a growing number of Americans, disenchanted with their conservative press.
To give you just one example of the possible scope of media bias, here's a quote from Fox News Network's reporting of the findings of the Hutton Inquiry:
"The British Broadcasting Corporation was forced to pay up for its blatant anti-Americanism before and during the Iraq war. A frothing-at-the-mouth anti-Americanism that was obsessive, irrational and dishonest. The BBC was one of the worst offenders in the British press because it felt entitled not only to pillory Americans and George W Bush, but because it felt entitled to lie."
As MediaGuardian's Monkey column put it, "Fox really should get off the fence, doncha think?"
12th Feb 2004