What do you get when you cross CNN and a nude beach?
No, not MTV News, but that's a nice try.
Watching CBS's news magazine show "Sunday Morning" a couple weeks ago made a special type of programming evident during a quick news segment. I am here to inform you that a red-headed step-child has shown it's freckled face in the TV journalism world: Move over Playboy Mansion, it's time to make room for the Naked News.
This program claims that it has "nothing to hide."
While checking out the Web site to make sure this news program wasn't just a folly to lure in people's credit card numbers, I did a Google search and realized that nakednews.com was, in fact, the naked truth.
Apparently, it is only on Pay Per View, and it's a whopping 33 cents a day -- just a simple $120.45 a year. Considering that price, I'd rather just watch Dan Rather mumble into the camera on CBS for free.
People have lived with nudity all their lives, from the day they found themselves in the shower at the age of three, to the different artistic depictions of the nude form. Being naked has been around longer than civilization, and being naked is the reason we're all here.
Unless you're one of those artificially inseminated types, you have my apologies -- Mom or Dad has an issue with nudity.
But this news program definitely doesn't, especially the anchors that supply their bodies and poor personality in exchange for tacky sets and stilted dialogue.
Yes, I had to watch it -- I'm a journalism major, I need to critique all outstanding news programs -- not that naked news is outstanding, it just stands out.
My roommate, a fellow journalism major, in disbelief about this Web site turned off "Band of Brothers" and stepped in pizza while crossing the room to see what the naked fuss was about.
Can someone say shock factor?
The Web site has bios of the "reporters" on the bottom of the page. There are 18 female anchors, and to make "Naked News" sexual-preference friendly -- they've added seven men. After reading a couple of their bios, they are all, oddly enough, just "risk takers" and come from the business world.
For some reason, Enron comes to mind.
This kinky news program is based in Toronto and apparently is the first Internet news company to present news with readers in the buff.
I'm glad they differentiated. The men and women on this web site are "naked news readers," not reporters.
The Web site isn't provocative -- you actually have to pay money before you can see body parts -- and that's fine, I don't need visual stimulus while getting the news. My heart already races when I read or hear about the Iraqi situation, without the distraction of some woman unbuttoning her shirt.
Is this what we would call serious voyeurism? Or are we just regressing back to the days before Adam and Eve ate the apple?
Either way, let's pray they don't do a special "Naked News" interview with Al Gore.
Write to Evan at
emann@mr-potatohead.com
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