Words are 1/1000th of a Picture

Missy Wilkinson of Gambit's Cue magazine in New Orleans appeared on a WWL morning show to discuss fashion trends and local designers.

The segment tease, video headline and much of the discussion centered on the concept of wearing underwear as outerwear, but unfortunately, the television station cropped the picture.

(If player fails to load, click post title)

Unrelated: Kate Moss Frolics Naked For Vogue Hommes (NSFW)

Using Hot Photos, Sex & Sexism to Generate Clicks

Last December, Glynnis MacNicol wrote a diatribe for Mediaite in which she calls into question the use of sexism to cause outrage in the blogosphere, which translates into clicks.

To support her thesis, Ms. MacNicol revisited the idea of using sex to generate traffic and she linked-out the Huffington Post's reprint of the Pirelli calendar, plus an article from the Washington City Paper, in which the author links to several HuffPo slideshows of nipple slips to illustrate a similar theme.

Yesterday, I questioned the wisdom of Ted Rall's most recent animation. Though among his "tips" to save newspapers was a slide that read; "Another key to survival: Pop culture core readers love".

Somewhere between Mr. Rall's suggestion and the common knowledge that sex sells, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution must have taken something to heart because last night, they published to their website, which I assume is in today's print edition, an enlargeable photo and repackaged press release from Playboy giving a short bio for a local girl deemed "Miss April" (pictured), along with notice of a casting call.

Semi-Related: Miss Nebraska Brittany Jeffers promoted to KLKN anchor

Phil McGraw Getting Sued Left & Right

Two women who participated in a 2007 episode of Dr. Phil have sued because they were subjected to a naked man, and a Minnesota man has also filed suit against Dr. Phil McGraw and his show's spin-off, The Doctors, because segments from an episode in which he participated was rerun over his objections.

The commonality between these lawsuits seem to be the amount of pressure applied to sign the release and their overall treatment by staff.

The women had agreed to spend a week in the "Dr. Phil House" along with four others to help combat their social anxiety. When a naked man showed up for dinner, the women locked themselves in a bedroom and though they strongly objected, they allege that the staff belittled and showed little regard for their concerns.

While the man had agreed to do an episode of The Doctors, where his pearly penile papules or penis blemishes were to be removed at no charge. The patient alleges that at pretty much every step, he was misled about the show's purpose, offered false reassurances and though he apparently didn't sign a requested release to allow a rerun, segments were rebroadcast as part of an "embarrassing moments" show.

Framing the News

The Senate Committee on the Environment and Public Works sent an email to staffers warning against visiting the Drudge Report or whitepages.com because the Senate's non-partisan systems administrator, who is overseen by the Seargent-at-Arms said that pop-up ads from these sites may be a source of recent malware incursions.

On Monday, prior to the staff notice, CNET posted a screenshot of a trojan warning apparently linked to Drudge's site and in addition to noting that it had happened through Drudge before, CNET also recalled when the New York Times carried a similar infection.

Naturally, Matt Drudge defended his website by giving pageview statistics and reporting that he had received no email complaints, but he couched it in political terms by bringing the health care debate into the mix and by advising the Senate's sysop to stay on her medication.

While FoxNews only mentions the insurance reform debate as a periphery to the administration's former "war" on Fox and somehow they try to tie it to Rep. Joe Wilson's, "you lie". Though for good measure, they also throw the "Fairness Doctrine" and a bipartisan Senate effort to give the President the power to take over the internet in response to a cybersecurity threat into their online report, a plan which originated in the Bush administration.
---

ETA: whitepages.com is the locator service licensed by the Post Office.

ClickBait: Double Entendre

San Francisco Business Times: Twitter to double space

Unfortunately, they mean office space.

Feed the Children

It used to be a staple, especially around the holidays. Throughout the nation, up and down the cable dial, our hearts were tugged by informercials showing poor American children in need and Larry Jones, along with his wife and occasional celebrity guests begging for us to give just a few cents a day to pool resources and buy warehouses of food for these unfortunate waifs.

Unbeknownest to me, the charity has been in turmoil for months and Mr. Jones, the group's founder was ousted back in November.

Within days of the personnel action, Mr. Jones filed a wrongful termination suit and this morning, the charity has filed a countersuit claiming that he had solicited bribes, misspent, pocketed travel funds and had hid pornography in the company offices.

The Oklahoman has full page of ongoing coverage, complete with today's actions, past articles, meeting minutes and other documents.

At first glance, I really can't tell whether Mr. Jones' "crimes" are more than a common, "redneck", old way of doing business with some Penthouse Forums inserted for their salaciousness, but because his informercials have haunted generations of stoners every Saturday morning, the Oklahoman index certainly makes for a good read.

Search for Space Aliens Gets IT Guy Sacked

As this story spreads across the globe, the headline is most likely going to use some variation of "space aliens", but the truth is that Higley (AZ) Unified School District lists a few other reasons for firing IT Chief Brad Niesluchowski, other than the fact that he was running SETI@home on every district computer.

Administrators estimate that because he most likely installed the software about a month after he was hired in February of 2000 and because he installed it on every computer throughout the district, they've had at least 2400 processors burn out early and it could have increased their energy costs by more than a million dollars.