I’m probably about as tired as you are about all the media coverage surrounding the Janet Jackson breast exposure on the Super Bowl halftime show. Most newspapers and broadcast outlets covered the story Monday, including The Star. Even the staid Wall Street Journal had an above-the-fold story Tuesday on its second section, Marketplace, complete with color photo of the duo before it happened.
I’ve seen enough, but my fatigue notwithstanding, this was legitimate news. It should have been covered. Does this mean that the stunt was more important than the Iraqis killed by suicide bombers? No, not at all.
The question is, How much coverage should the media give news consumers about this event? Let’s play You’re the editor.
First the context: The Super Bowl has an audience of hundreds of millions of viewers. It airs in prime time. Football arguably is America’s favorite sport. Adults and kids alike watch the show every year. Advertisers pay $2.3 million per 30-second commercial.
The halftime show always features Top-40 icons, and as music companies’ concerns relax about sexual and political content, these icons get more suggestive every year. Jackson’s breast aside, her dance routine included sexual gyrations. And did you check out the scantily clad women in the P. Diddy/Nelly performance?
Next, boy-band refugee Justin Timberlake sings to Jackson that he will get her naked by the end of this song.
Then came the rip seen ’round the world.
What would you have done?
The Star ran traditional game coverage in Monday’s Sports section, including a short story on page C-6 on the unplanned flashing, and three paragraphs in Jason Whitlock’s Sports-front column. He wrote, Today we should savor the best Super Bowl of all-time and Janet Jackson’s breast appearance.
Tuesday, after 24 hours of steady TV and cable coverage; Web sites streaming the video; apologies from Jackson and Timberlake; and an angry FCC launching an investigation, The Star followed with a front-page news story and another Whitlock column.
The second day’s Star coverage drew a firestorm of readers mainly about Whitlock including:
One Kansas City man told Whitlock to stick to sports writing and leave out the sex writing.
A woman from Oskaloosa, Kan., said Whitlock needs to stop honing his image as an outlaw.
An Olathe man thought the column was as offensive as the trash at the halftime.
Another reader who left voicemail in the reader rep line summed it up nicely: Please, no more free publicity for the Jacksons.
And Eleanor Rice of Blue Springs called to say The Star’s coverage was not impartial. I am not justifying what Janet did, but if The Star is going to be fair, they need to (focus on) the streaker  too.
In subsequent days, more stories, columns and letters to the editor ran in these pages as backlash against Jackson mounted. (Surprisingly, the ripper, Timberlake, is getting less attention than the rippee. Producers of this weekend’s Grammy Awards have announced that Jackson is barred from appearing on the show, but Timberlake can perform.)
Back to your job as editor: Many of you would have ignored the story entirely, or downplayed it, according to calls I received last week.
The question, Is it news? is one that is debated daily at The Star. Not all issues get consensus. But clearly, from the context presented, media organizations had to cover this story. I believe the story rightly deserved inside status on Monday, but on Tuesday, it had changed from a peek at a woman’s breast to a governmental agency launching an investigation that would potentially add up to millions of dollars in fines for CBS. If the investigation finds CBS at fault, it might send a chilling message to the other broadcast networks to tone it down.
Now that would be news.
