As any reader of gossip sites knows by now, while exiting a limo on the way to a Les Miserables premiere, a paparazzo snapped a picture of Anne Hathaway’s genitalia and sold it. Hathaway’s always struck me as a classy and smart person. So when Matt Lauer, in an exceptionally gross moment, noted that we’ve “Seen a lot of you lately,” as if Hathaway had deliberately decided to go flashing her nether regions around New York for the laughs and to satisfy an exhibitionist streak, she responded by explaining where the blame for the incident should lie:

It was obviously an unfortunate incident. It kind of made me sad on two accounts. One was that I was very sad that we live in an age when someone takes a picture of another person in a vulnerable moment, and rather than delete it, and do the decent thing, sells it. And I’m sorry that we live in a culture that commodifies the sexuality of unwilling participants.

It’s refreshing to see Hathaway give no quarter to any potential criticism of her. When crotch shots seemed to be a regular occurrence, there was a lot of moralizing about whether starlets should simply adapt to the new, invasive media environment and permanently adopt underwear with a coverage area equivalent to that of tennis shorts. But while that may be wise, it’s depressing, and Hathaway was right to back up the conversation to a place that requires photographers and the people who consume them to consider accepting some responsibility.

Hathaway isn’t the only young actress to react to nude or exposed image of her gone public with aplomb, rather than acting ashamed or trying to reestablish a sense of her virtue. When The Newsroom actress Allison Pill accidentally tweeted a topless picture she intended to Direct Message to her fiance Jay Baruchel earlier this year, she responded to the incident with another tweet: “Yep. That picture happened. Ugh. My tech issues have now reached new heights, apparently.” He didn’t treat it like a big deal either, calling her a “hilarious dork” online.

Crotch shots are an inevitable result of the paparazzi era. Misdirected messages are an inevitable result of the rise of relatively insecure social media as a major means of communication. Hathaway and Pill are smart enough to know that the mistakes and embarrassments that happen are not about them, even if Matt Lauer isn’t wise or self-aware enough not to know that, and to hold back from embarrassing himself.

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) is displeased that, in the wake of the end of Jersey Shore, in part because some of that show’s stars started doing things like having babies and acquiring responsibilities other than partying, MTV is coming to his state with a show that will start airing next year called Buckwild. The program will follow the antics of a group of twenty-somethings who live in a 4,000-person town. The Washington Post reports on his letter to MTV:

“As a U.S. Senator, I am repulsed at this business venture, where some Americans are making money off of the poor decisions of our youth,” Manchin wrote. “I cannot imagine that anyone who loves this country would feel proud profiting off of ‘Buckwild.’”

“Instead of showcasing the beauty of our people and our state, you preyed on young people, coaxed them into displaying shameful behavior — and now you are profiting from it. That is just wrong.”
In an interview Thursday before sending the letter, Manchin repeatedly called MTV’s decision “just awful.”

“I have no problem with people in this country trying to earn a profit, but I would ask them: Would they do this to their own children, in their own neighborhood, in their own home state?” Manchin said.

It would be nice of Manchin, in the course of defending the innocent young people of his state, would recognize that his own constituents are among the people who “are making money off of the poor decisions of our youth.” There are definitely reality television programs that can be exploitative. Scenes can be cut to be misleading. Producers can be less than honest with participants about their intentions for a project. And no matter how much anyone does to prepare the subjects of a reality show for the limelight, there’s no way to predict what the reaction to a program will be until it airs, or how people who haven’t previously broadcast their lives will react to being characters, as opposed to actual humans.

But we’re also at a point in the development of reality television where many, many people who agree to participate in it are aware of the genre’s conventions, and go into the process with open eyes and a clear sense of how they can leverage the process to their own advantage. The subjects of Breaking Amish appear to have given the producers what they wanted, no matter the facts of their actual lives. I have qualms about making very young children the main characters of reality shows, but the adults who are participating in a program like Here Comes Honey Boo Boo seem self-aware and happy, and rather than becoming objects of pure ridicule, there are a lot of people who have found them rather likable. Jersey Shore‘s stars showed a determined willingness to make fools of themselves, but in a way that was mostly calculated, rather than desperate.

If I were Manchin, I might have a little more respect for my constituents. The only real argument I can see making is that rather than setting the show in Sissonville, which is in Kanawha County in West Virginia, which has 6.1 percent unemployment, down from 6.7 percent last year, MTV might have considered going to Clay County, where the unemployment rate is 13.5 percent, up from 10.6 percent last year.

As someone who has read Tina Brown’s The Diana Chronicles more times than I care to admit, and who harbors a streak of deep and abiding corniness, will confess to being happy at the news that the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge are expecting their first child together. But it’s not just the Royals-watcher in me that’s curious to see how Kate Middleton’s pregnancy plays out. Here are three things I’m thinking of as the media frenzy commences:

1. How will her pregnancy affect the ongoing debate over British press laws? When Princess Diana was pregnant, Queen Elizabeth made a special appeal to the press to consider how they treated the Princess of Wales, given how badly she was suffering from morning sickness, an affliction that also appears to plague her daughter-in law. This time, Kate Middleton’s pregnancy comes in the middle of an event that could put even more pressure on British publications: the release of the Leveson Report into the phone hacking scandal that proposed a much more rigorous regulation scheme for the British press. How British tabloids pursue the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge could end up affecting public sentiment about the Leveson recommendations.

2. It’s crazy-retro to have your job be getting pregnant, but at least that recognizes that pregnancy is work: Usually, we’re uncomfortable discussing the extent to which being pregnant is hard work until it comes to giving birth: then, we call the process labor. Some informal rituals have sprung up to acknowledge the physical work that goes into carrying a child, like the idea of so-called push presents for a partner who’s given birth (the all-time best of those? The biker boots Tim Burton gave Helen Bonham Carter after the birth of their fourth child.). We’re comfortable with the idea that surrogates should be compensated (and we don’t treat them like insane throwbacks, in part because surrogacy isn’t usually a full-time job). But all of these conversations still shy away from the nine-plus months of work that happens before a woman goes into labor, and for state support for women whose pregnancies aren’t as high-profile affairs as the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge’s. The United States is the only Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development member country that doesn’t mandate paid parental leave schemes for new parents. It may be insanely old-fashioned for a woman to have as her career goals having two children. But at least when she does, everyone recognizes that she should get totally comprehensive, affordable health care coverage.

3. Boys are no longer the prize: I wrote about this earlier today, but for the first time, a Royal pregnancy doesn’t have to produce a boy to be successful. If Kate has a girl, she gets to be Queen, period, without any worry that she’ll be leapfrogged by a younger brother. That’s awesome, and shockingly overdue.

Conor Friedersdorf has a sharply observed take on rigorous journalism as a competitive advantage in this election cycle:

Conservatives were at a disadvantage because Romney supporters like Jennifer Rubin and Hugh Hewitt saw it as their duty to spin constantly for their favored candidate rather than being frank about his strengths and weaknesses. What conservative Washington Post readers got, when they traded in Dave Weigel for Rubin, was a lot more hackery and a lot less informed about the presidential election.

Conservatives were at an information disadvantage because so many right-leaning outlets wasted time on stories the rest of America dismissed as nonsense. WorldNetDaily brought you birtherism. Forbes brought you Kenyan anti-colonialism. National Review obsessed about an imaginary rejection of American exceptionalism, misrepresenting an Obama quote in the process, and Andy McCarthy was interviewed widely about his theory that Obama, aka the Drone Warrior in Chief, allied himself with our Islamist enemies in a “Grand Jihad” against America. Seriously?

Obviously, as someone who works for an organization with a clearly-stated perspective on what kinds of policies make for a stronger country, I have a dog and a paycheck behind the fight that says it’s possible to have both a worldview and a rigorous approach to facts. But even given that, it’s always amazing to me that people choose to believe it’s better, not just for their pageviews, but for their causes, to be dishonest or to waste time on conspiracy theories or straight-up dishonesty. If you lie, you can get caught, and sometimes, sued. If you chase ghosts, you risk being thought ridiculous both by people whose opinions you disdain and those whose approval you might like to court. If you devote bandwidth to nothing stories, you waste time that could be more profitably spent researching and reporting real scandals, and developing sources of actual value. If you mislead your readers to inflame their passions, you divert them from issues that they could profitably mobilize around. If you skew possible outcomes, you risk exposing your audience to shattering disappointments and confusion. No matter how well you firewall yourself, you will eventually be exposed on some level. Orly Taitz and company can believe all they want that the president is not an American citizen. But they cannot deny that he is occupying the White House and performing the office of president.

If your only goals are to juice traffic, I understand this kind of approach on a rational level, even though it’s vile. But if your goals are ideological, doing these things makes no damn sense.

Gabriel Sherman has an amazing piece about the on-air meltdown at Fox News over the decision to call Ohio for President Obama last night, which contains this charming detail:

With neither side backing down, senior producers had to find a way to split the difference. One idea was for two members of the decision team, Mishkin and Fox’s digital politics editor Chris Stirewalt, to go on camera with Megyn Kelly and Bret Baier to squelch the doubts over the call. But then it was decided that Kelly would walk through the office and interview the decision team in the conference room. “This is Fox News,” an insider said, “so anytime there’s a chance to show off Megyn Kelly’s legs they’ll go for it.” The decision desk were given a three-minute warning that Kelly would be showing up.

I suppose when a substantial part of your brand, in addition to hiring commentators for their inflammatory qualities rather than actual credentials, is hiring extremely attractive women, it makes sense to use the assets you’ve invested in. But the decision by the channel last night to break the firewall between its anchors and its decision team on behalf of a contributor, Karl Rove, who helped shepherd hundreds of millions of dollars to influence the outcome of an election and didn’t want to hear the final verdict on his investment, was already a sham, another illustration of a conservative allergy to facts and data. Sending an attractive woman to do that embarrassing work–rather than letting her continue to do her anchoring job, at which Kelly is frequently a credit to the network–on Rove’s behalf, to fake concern for the integrity of election results, and to send her in part so you can get her legs out from behind her desk, is strikingly juvenile and strikingly retrograde.

I had a nice time at New York Comic Con this year, but Mandy Caruso, an illustrator and (clearly very talented) costume designer who was cosplaying as Black Cat at the convention….did not. She’s described some of the unattractive, but still, sadly routine gawking and requests to pose for photographs she experienced. But things apparently got really bad when she was asked by what appeared to be a legitimate media outlet for an interview. This is what happened:

Him: Damn, alright! Well let me ask you an important question then…what is your cup size?
Me: (big talk show smile) That is actually none of your fucking business.
Him: Oh! I think that means to say she’s a C.
Me: I actually have no breasts at all, what you see is just all of the fat from my midsection pulled up to my chest and carefully held in place with this corset. It’s really uncomfortable, I don’t know why I do it.
Him: (to the male crowd) Aw, come on what do you guys think? C cup?
—a few males start to shout out cup sizes as I stand there looking at this guy like this has to be a fucking joke, then look at the crowd and see that no amount of witty banter or fiestiness will stop making this whole thing fucking dumb. It was clearly a ploy to single out cosplaying women to get them to talk sexual innuendos and flirt with this asshole and let him talk down to them simply because they were in costume and were attractive. Whether I’m in a skintight catsuit or not, I’m a fucking professional in everything I do and I don’t need to play nice for this idiot.
Me: This is not an interview, this is degrading. I’m done. (I walk away)
Him: (clearly dumbfounded and surprised) ..Come on, it’s all in good fun!
Me: Being degraded is fun? That was unprofessional and I hope that isn’t your day job because you can’t interview for shit, my man.

Caruso has declined to name the news organization whose staffer did this. But I wish she would. It’s going to take a very long time to shift the culture of fan communities. But at minimum, no respectable conference or event should ever credential this staffer, and the organization that would have seen fit to publish an interview like this. The whole point of a credentials process is to weed out people who intend to provide serious coverage of an event and people who are just abusing a shot at getting free admission to a place where they can ogle women.

Over the past couple of days, I’ve been following the response to a truly idiotic move by fashion house Paul Frank. For Fashion’s Night Out, an annual shopping event, the company decided to host a party called “”Dream Catchin’ with Paul Frank,” where, according to blogger Adrienne K., who is Cherokee, attendees posed with tomahawks, bows and arrows, and feathered headbands. It’s a colossally insensitive move, and hardly a novel one, given that the appropriation of so-called “native” culture has been a big deal in fashion for a couple of cycles now.

Normally when a company or an individual does something this clueless, promoting justifiable frustration from the people they’ve appropriated and stereotyped, they make a statement and a donation, and the beat goes on. But according to Adrienne, Paul Frank reached out to her and other Native American bloggers for their feedback, and outlined a comprehensive approach to shut down the campaign the event was based on, and to educate other people in the industry about how Paul Frank went wrong, and they can, too:

The phone call went so much better than I could have even imagined. Elie was gracious, sincere, and kind from the beginning, and truly apologetic. He took full responsibility for the event, and said he wanted to make sure that this was something that never happened again, and wanted to learn more so he could educate his staff and colleagues. We talked about the history of representations of Native people in the US, and I even got into the issues of power and privilege at play–and the whole time, he actually listened, and understood. Such a refreshing experience.

I could go on and on about the call, but enough background, here are the incredible, amazing, mind-boggling action steps that the company has taken and has promised to take in the near future:

-They have already removed all of the Native inspired designs from their digital/online imprint

-The company works off a “Style Guide” that includes all of the digital art for the company, and then separate manufacturing companies license those images and turn them into products. Elie and his staff have gone through the style guide, even into the archives, and removed all of the Native imagery, meaning no future products will be produced with these images.

-They have sent (or it will be sent today) a letter to all of their manufacturers and partners saying none of this artwork is authorized for use and it has been removed from their business

-Elie has invited Jessica and I to collaborate with him on a panel about the use of Native imagery in the industry to be held at the International Licensing Merchandisers Association (LIMA) conference in June. This would reach a large and incredibly influential audience all in one place.

and the MOST exciting part:

-Paul Frank Industries would like to collaborate with a Native artist to make designs, where the proceeds would be donated to a Native cause!

I excerpt this at length because I think this kind of response is a model for the kinds of actions both companies and publications should take when they clown themselves this epically. Can you imagine what would happen if a fashion magazine—say, French Vogue—after publishing an editorial of a model in blackface, held a roundtable with bloggers of color, explained the editorial process that lead to the editorial being commissioned and run, and outlined the changes they’d made along the way to prevent themselves from publishing content that was both emotionally and editorially unworthy of their brand?

Organizations love to apologize without making process changes or explaining them. ABC News chief Brian Sherwood’s explanation that he’d rebuked Brian Ross after the latter speculated that Aurora shooter James Holmes was affiliated with the Tea Party, coupled with his evasions on which internal procedures lead to the information going on the air and what they’d changed, is a textbook example of this kind of approach to crisis management. It is embarrassing to reveal that, say, you don’t employ anyone who might have the perspective to point out to you that a “pow-wow” is not an okay thing to do, or that a news organization airs information it found on Google without verifying it. But cauterizing those wounds and explaining how you’ve worked backwards to make sure you don’t make the errors again is a short-term pain it’s worth enduring.