THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, February 19, 1995 TAG: 9502190157
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: ELIZABETH SIMPSON
LENGTH: Medium: 67 lines
This is the precise wording the curmudgeony fellow used to sum up a certain TV anchor's journalistic skills.
``Perky bosom, a shapely bottom, pearly teeth, elegant clothing, beautifully sculpted hair and terrific legs.''
Was this some guy yapping away at a local watering hole? Someone whispering at the office water cooler? A loudmouth at a cocktail party?
Nope. I read it in the newspaper. Could have read it in a hundred papers that day. In a piece written by one of this country's most esteemed columnists.
Mike Royko.
Don't get me wrong. I love the guy. Agree with him most of the time. Envy his funny, no-holds-barred style. Respect his ability to connect with the common man and poke fun at people in high places.
But when I read his description of a TV anchor who covered a hearing in which Royko was accused of driving while intoxicated, I had a far different reaction: jaw-dropping disgust.
For Royko didn't stop with the perky bosom description, but went on to describe a slight throbbing in the reporter's ``delicate throat.''
``Under other circumstances,'' he writes, ``I might have given it a hickey.''
Someone might call this funny. I call it sexual harassment. In print. For all the world to see. I'm surprised his boss hasn't called him into the office and forced him into a sensitivity training session. Especially since he ends his column by suggesting the reporter attained her job with ``a pretty face and shapely bottom.''
But no. He's a big important guy with big important opinions who makes massively big bucks so he can get away with saying things so sexist they belong in a different century. Like the Stone Age.
This sense of outrage often strikes me when I read the paper. It happened not long ago when I was reading a story about a judge who gave a guy an 18-month sentence for killing his wife. Why so lenient? The fellow caught his wife in bed with another man.
``I seriously wonder how many married men - married four, five years - would have the strength to walk away without inflicting some corporal punishment,'' the judge said.
Say what? Since when is infidelity a reason for killing someone?
And I'm not even going to get into the judge who took custody of a 3-year-old away from her mother because she, gasp, put her child in a day-care center.
Know what's most frustrating? These are not guys standing around waiting to donate blood plasma. Or guys who have been shut away in the pen for years, or people so removed from the world that no one gives a hoot about what they say.
These are men who command a tremendous amount of respect, whose reputations have carried them to high places, whose opinions shape and influence people's lives.
Maybe Royko thought his outrageously sexist remarks would deflect attention from his DWI charge.
If so, there's an adjective Royko used to describe the TV anchor that might come in useful here:
Brainless. ILLUSTRATION: Mike Royko's column about a television anchorwoman amounted to
harassment.
by CNB