• by John Gaffney , May 1, 2003

Model Talk: Like it or not, Christie Brinkley and Jamie Lee Curtis are making a point and the magazine industry is going to have to deal with it. Brinkley and Curtis have been not so quietly protesting the fact that magazines and their ever-effective airbrush techniques are "perpetrating a fraud," as Curtis puts it. They are communicating an image of women as perfect bodies. "Genetic freaks" comedian Janeane Garofolo calls them. That may be true. If you bother to look into the issues that affect not just older women but even teens, you will find out that the body image created and endorsed by media is a huge issue. Read "Reviving Ophelia" by Mary Pipher if you want to know more. I think, however, that the magazine industry has already started to address this by creating new brands. More magazine shows women as they are. Hopefully more magazines that focus on the fashion industry can address the body image issue in their editorial pages. I'm not really sure there can be a resolution of this issue that everyone can be happy with. Tell Cosmo they can't airbrush covers. Tell FHM they have to run plus-sized women. Tell SI their swimsuit issue has to filmed on a random day at Jones Beach. It won't work. But we need to heed Curtis, Brinkley and other women who are trying to wake media up to an important, and uncomfortable, issue.

Fox Talk: I took a shot at Fox News for putting a bald eagle on its advertising for "fair and balanced" coverage. I've had a lot of email on that, mostly pointing out that a news source can be fair and balanced and still love their country. I agree with that. But I think news reporting needs to be totally separate (at its best) from any and all prejudice. In times of war we see compromises that we can call healthy. But advocacy of any kind should be saved for comment and talk shows. We have plenty of them to give voice to patriotism.

At The Buzzer: I would love to see Fox, CNN or anybody cover health care with the zeal in which they covered the build up to the Iraqi conflict and the conflict itself.