The Nude Weatherman


by Aidan Maconachy - Date: 2006-12-04 - Word Count: 401 Share This!

WSLS-TV, an affiliate of NBC, recently fired meteorologist, Jamey Singleton, because a nude photo of the latter was discovered on MySpace.com. The photo was posted by a friend and Singleton tried to get it removed when he discovered it was on the internet. Turns out he was too late. The photo had already been sent by e-mail to co-workers.

A spokesman for the station cited "community standards" as a reason for the dismissal.

Whose community standards? I personally don't know too many people who would be so deeply disturbed by a nude pic of a weatherman, that they would no longer be able to follow his fully dressed report without experiencing deep moral angst.

The guy is a weatherman, not the the President or even a Senator. He makes his living talking about cumulus clouds and tornadoes. How can he be held liable when it was an associate who posted the pic on MySpace. It seems unfair to make him pay for the actions of another party.

The pic was pulled off the net at Jamey's request, so it only had a tiny window of exposure. Suppose a MySpace surfer miraculously came across this particular photo during the hour or so that it was online. Does exposure to private parts suddenly make Jamey's reporting less valid? I would have thought the opposite. Weather people are often rather boring. If Jamey has a bod worth posting naked on MySpace, then this is a meteorologist worth watching.

The term "community standards" is vague and amorphous. It is mouthed by people who want to evoke some impression of horrified spinsters and Florida retirees all experiencing deep distress at some silliness the rest couldn't care less about.

Okay, it's come out that Jamey had a drug habit in the past, but I'm not going to go there, I want to focus on the nude pic which was after all the declared reason for his dismissal. If the pic showed him having sex with a goat or being flagellated by a nun, fair enough ... that might be worth a second thought or two. But the guy was simply nudito. Nothing more incriminating than being caught in his birthday suit; an "ambush pic" taken by a friend when Jamey stepped out of the shower. By the raunchy standards of the real, rather than imaginary, community in which we live, this is weenie stuff.

WSLS-TV richly deserves the overdressed "community" they derive their standards from.


Related Tags: weather, myspace, nbc, jamey, singleton, nude, photo, fired

Aidan Maconachy is a freelance artist and writer living in Ontario

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