As part of several recent segments, Fox News has featured photographs or videos of nude or nearly nude women.
Cavuto's World populated by Victoria's Secret, Playboy models and a pole-dancing Pamela Anderson
Written by Media Matters Staff
Published
Fox News Channel has, as part of several recent segments, aired a series of photographs and videos of scantily-clad women, and blurred images of nude women. A Media Matters for America review of Fox News Channel from December 5 through December 15 found at least eight different segments featuring photographs or video footage of nude or nearly nude women, as well as discussions on news programs of “hot” videos, and an item on provocative attire in the workplace. One program, Your World with Neil Cavuto, a weekday business program that airs at 4 p.m. EST, featured six of the eight segments. While host Neil Cavuto offered little in the way of explicit justification for the use of the material, the segments listed below were all cast as business stories.
A summary of segments aired by Fox News:
- December 5: Your World with Neil Cavuto featured a segment on Playboy's plans to offer “Playboy Bodcasts” for Apple's new video-capable iPod, which allow users to download features such as “joke of the day” or “video advice from Playboy's sexy Cyber Girls” directly onto their video player. Cavuto showed an iPod's screen featuring the “sexy,” scantily clad women.
- December 6: Fox & Friends First promoted Cavuto's upcoming interview with various Victoria's Secret models and president and chief marketing officer Ed Razek, showing footage of models from a lingerie fashion show.
- December 6: DaySide also featured a segment in which hosts Mike Jerrick and Juliet Huddy interviewed several Victoria's Secret models, who were promoting their nationally televised fashion show on CBS, which was to air that evening. Jerrick praised “the entire country of Brazil” for spawning "[t]he most beautiful women alive." Huddy warned Jerrick to “stay away from her [19-year-old Brazilian model Izabel Goulart]” because “she's very young.”
- December 6: Your World with Neil Cavuto featured an interview with Victoria's Secret models Alessandra Ambrosio, Karolina Kurkova, Goulart, Selita Ebanks, and Razek. Again, footage of the women modeling lingerie was shown.
- December 9: Your World with Neil Cavuto hosted former ABC sports reporter Lisa Guerrero to discuss her nude photographs in the January 2006 issue of Playboy magazine.
- December 13: Your World with Neil Cavuto featured a segment advising women to show “less skin” at the workplace that included several examples and video footage of provocatively dressed women. The segment was introduced with a split-screen shot of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) on one side and entertainer Pamela Anderson on the other, before showing images of women in office-inappropriate attire. Musical duo Right Said Fred's 1991 single “I'm Too Sexy” was used as background music.
- December 14: Your World with Neil Cavuto reported on NBC's decision to remove a video of Anderson pole-dancing during a December 12 special on Elton John. Cavuto played the video that NBC censored, declaring that while the video was “too hot” for NBC, it was "[n]ot for this network [Fox News]!"
- December 14: Your World with Neil Cavuto hosted Rep. Jim Matheson (D-UT) to discuss his proposal to begin taxing Internet pornography. During the segment, screen shots of computer monitors featuring blurred pornography websites were shown.