Boob Tube

Shameless Sweeps stunt or public service? You be the judge. DC's WJLA TV kicks off a four-part series on breast cancer during November sweeps showing women naked from the waist up. [photo, a local TV weatherman being a dick with a news graphic.]

Wash Post's Paul Farhi: WJLA acknowledges....  that the timing of its stories may raise some eyebrows: The reports will air on the first two days of TV's traditional "sweeps" month, a period in which stations air their most eye-catching stories to boost ratings that are used to set advertising rates.

WJLA general manager Bill Lord said he had no qualms about the timing of the reports, or in promoting them beforehand. "People will say we're doing it just for ratings," he said. "But we're a commercial television station -- we're trying to get people to watch us. Yes, this is an attention-getting story, but it's also an important story."

Lord said the station consulted medical experts who said news reports on breast-cancer detection haven't offered enough detail to teach people how to do an exam properly.

The station's first report features a 28-year-old woman from Northern Virginia, Lauren Albright, who volunteered to be led through an on-camera self-exam by an oncologist. She is shown examining her bare torso in a mirror and on an examination table, in both close-up and medium shots. Reporter Gail Pennybacker says in a voice-over that Albright took the "extraordinary step of baring herself" to teach women how to do the exam.

Although CBS ran afoul of the Federal Communications Commission for airing Janet Jackson's breast-baring "wardrobe malfunction" during the 2004 Super Bowl, WJLA isn't at risk of government sanction because news reports are exempt from the FCC's "indecency" rules.

Representatives of the American Cancer Society said they were unaware of other stations airing similarly frank reports. The organization's spokeswoman had no comment on WJLA's approach to the subject.

The American Cancer Society says self-exams play only "a small role" in finding breast cancer. On its Web site, the society says "it's okay not to do [a self examination] or not to do it on a fixed schedule."