A television critic, who was recently fired by CNN and The Daily Beast after a series of embarrassing mistakes about a gay NBC player, on Tuesday devoted his Fox News column to how little clothing his former employer's daughter-in-law was wearing in her Facebook photos.
Fox News media critic Howard Kurtz began his Tuesday column by noting that Washington Post Vice President Ben Bradlee, who Kurtz had worked for before leaving for The Daily Beast, was "one of the great men of American journalism."
But the point of Kurtz' column was not to praise Ben Bradlee: it was to call out his daughter-in-law, Pari Bradlee, for a profile photo she posted Facebook because she is wearing a "Swiss-cheese bra that leaves little to the imagination and long black leather sleeves and briefs, is so revealing that it drew a torrent of breathless comments."
Kurtz added that the yoga instructor posted another photo where "she is nude, shot from the back, twisting one arm behind her."
Although there is nothing about the photos that wouldn't make it past network television censors, Kurtz asked, "Do the pictures go too far?"
"And while there is a light-hearted aspect to the R-rated pictures, Pari Bradlee is also making a statement," the Fox News critic wrote.
"The Hamptons photo shoot, conducted by an old friend, Barry Fidnick, prompted friends to post such comments as 'HOTT THANG!!!!', 'u look sexual' and 'Turning this gay man STRAIGHT!' Kurtz observed. "And her husband obviously approves: he 'liked' the picture on her page."
However, Sally Quinn, who writes a column on religion for the Post and is married to Ben Bradlee, probably won't be "liking" anything Kurtz does anytime soon.
She told Media Matters that she was "appalled" and "heartbroken" when she saw the comments about her daugher-in-law.
"I thought Howard was a decent guy, I thought he was my friend and I'm appalled and really heartbroken that he would do something like this," she explained. "Why would you want to hurt somebody?"
"Why would he want to hurt me and Ben and Quinn and Pari by doing that?" Quinn wondered. "I just don't know. Ben has seen the photos...but they're not revealing."
"Pari is a beautiful woman and she is a yoga teacher and I don't see what the problem is, I don't see the problem," she said, later adding, "It makes it look like he is an old geezer, I feel sorry for him."
Fox News announced this week that Kurtz' new show MediaBuzz would premiere on September 8 at 11 a.m.
"A veteran journalist and renowned media reporter for over two decades, Kurtz will examine media bias while dissecting news events of the current and previous weeks," a statement from the network said.
