Oops! The Times Did It Again!

It doesn’t quite sink to the depths of the NY Times‘ Oct. 6,2002 Page-One article that solemnly chronicled Britney Spears‘ “process of refashioning herself for a new career,” but it must surely rank as the all-time apogee of tackiness for the paper’s “Arts & Leisure” section.
I am, of course, referring to what must be the largest, sorriest photo ever run on that section’s front page—the above-the-fold full-color display in yesterday’s paper of a pudgy, unattractive Las Vegas showgirl in full plumage, for an article featuring such trenchant quotes as, “I don’t want to hip-hop topless. I want my tatas to stay where they are.”
The Times thought so much of this story that it also used the cheesecake shot as a Page One teaser. Strangely, the photo caption failed to identify the rhinestone showgirl who got such prominent play.
I know that the “Arts & Leisure” section has been devoting more space to the lowbrow—a beneath-contempt attempt to appeal to its many readers who have no use for high culture. But a 1943-word, six-photo spread devoted to the demise of the showgirl is just too much of a bad thing. Fittingly, another headline on the same page queries, “How Do You Say ‘Desperate’ in Spanish?” That article chronicles another topic of burning cultural interest—the Latin American incarnation of “Desperate Housewives.”
The infamous Page-One article and photo devoted to Britney Spears appeared during Howell Raines‘ reign as executive editor. Perhaps the editors of the “Arts & Leisure” section will have to defend their news judgment in similar terms to those offered by the now deposed Raines: The Spears article, he said, elucidated “the fame machine, the economic engine that’s behind it, Our readers are interested in reading a sophisticated exegesis of a sociological phenomenon like that.”
We can only wonder whether the audience-hungry “Arts & Leisure” editors will next week give equal time and full-frontal coverage to the Las Vegas phenomenon said by yesterday’s article to be supplanting showgirls: sexually explicit female revues. After all, we must all stay current with the latest “sociological phenomenon.”
I think the NY Times needs to get its “tatas” in place.