WSLS-TV, an NBC affiliate, 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 delete it when he discovered it was on the Internet. Turns out it was too late. The photo had already been emailed to co-workers.
A spokesperson for the station cited “community standards” as the reason for the firing.
Whose community standards? Personally, I don’t know many people who would be so deeply disturbed by a nude photo of a meteorologist, that they would no longer be able to follow his report fully clothed without experiencing deep moral anguish.
The guy is a meteorologist, not the president or even the senator. He makes a living talking about cumulus clouds and tornadoes. How can you be held accountable when an associate posted the photo on MySpace? It seems unfair to make you pay for the actions of another party.
The photo was taken from the network at the request of Jamey, so it only had a small window of exposure. Suppose a MySpace netizen miraculously came across this particular photo during the hour it was online. Does exposure to private parts suddenly make Jamey’s reports less valid? I would have thought otherwise. Weather people are usually pretty boring. If Jamey has a body worth posting naked on MySpace, then this is a meteorologist worth watching.
The term “community standards” is vague and amorphous. It is articulated by people who want to evoke an impression of horrified spinsters and Florida retirees experiencing deep anguish over some nonsense that the rest do not care.
Okay, it turned out that Jamey had a drug habit in the past, but I’m not going there, I want to focus on the nude photo that was the stated reason for his firing after all. If the photo showed him having sex with a goat or being flogged by a nun, that’s fair … that might be worth a second thought. But the guy was just nudito. Nothing more incriminating than being caught in his birthday suit; an “ambush photo” taken by a friend when Jamey got out of the shower. By the obscene standards of the real, rather than imaginary, community we live in, this is a rare thing.
WSLS-TV more than deserves the oversized “community” from which its standards derive.