A PLOY FOR RATINGS STRIPPED OF PRETENSE

When I finally watched Sharon Reed’s naked ploy for ratings last week on WOIO Channel 19, my own reaction surprised me.

I expected to be angry and appalled to watch this news anchorwoman wriggle free of her sexy lingerie for hundreds of thousands of television viewers.

Instead, I felt incredibly sad.

I was sad that local broadcast journalism had hit a new low.

I was sad that so many Clevelanders, including the media, fell for it.

Most of all, I was sad for Sharon Reed.

Reed is a beautiful, smart, highly educated black woman in a profession that would never have hired her thirty years ago. The daughter of two schoolteachers went to Georgetown University, then got her master’s at the prestigious Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University.

She had the talent and credentials to force open doors typically held ajar only for perky young blondes and men allowed to age until they’re propped upright.

Instead, Reed chose to become, in her words, the first anchorwoman to appear nude on the news. She did this because her two bosses, both middle-aged white men, convinced her it would be great for the ratings.

Too bad they didn’t care about her career.

Five months ago, news director Stephen Doerr and general manager Bill Applegate asked Reed if she’d agree to be filmed stripping for artist Spencer Tunick’s nude group photo shoot here in Cleveland.

I called Doerr and Applegate to ask them why they approached Reed. I’ll give Doerr credit for this: He didn’t even attempt to mask their motives with praise for Reed’s intellect or quick wit.

He said he adores her. “Sharon is a stunningly beautiful woman. We knew what this could do for our ratings.”

Why this isn’t sexual harassment, I’m not sure. If one of our bosses here called a woman in and asked her to strip for the job, she’d be screaming for a union rep and a good lawyer.

TV’s different, Reed said. This is “art.”

Applegate didn’t return my call.

Reed said it took her about an hour to say yes, and she did it for Doerr.

“There is no one else I would have done this for,” she told me. “I love Steve, I adore Steve, I truly trust him with my life and my career. You ask anyone who worked with him before he came here. They will tell you Steve is a god.”

Reed actually was filmed at the shoot in June, but the station held the segment until November sweeps, when audience levels determine advertising rates. The station’s racy promos paid off: The single broadcast last Monday drew the station its highest ratings ever. It also generated a great deal of national attention—and criticism—Doerr said the station neither expected nor wanted.

It also left its newsroom deeply divided.

None of the other editors, reporters, and anchors knew about Reed’s segment until the week before it aired, and many of them were furious. Channel 19 later televised some of the staff criticism, but the worst never made the air. Some of it has made its way to me, though, and morale is in the tank.

“We should have sought out more opinions,” Doerr conceded. “But you also have to understand what it’s been like here for Sharon with other women in the newsroom. Some of the stuff they’ve done to her is the most vicious I’ve ever seen.”

Well, yes, television newsrooms tend to be snake pits, especially when the emphasis is on youth and beauty, and smile lines can be fatal flaws. But it is the Doerrs of the world who insist on replacing veterans with an endless stream of youngsters. And it was this Doerr in particular who, during our interview, referred to a woman in their accounting department as “one of the girls.”

Doerr and Reed both said he repeatedly asked her if she was sure about running the video.

“Right up to the day before we aired it, I told her we’d pull it if she wanted to,” Doerr said.

“He kept asking, ‘Are you okay? Are you okay?’ ” Reed said. “I kept saying, ‘Yes. I trust your judgment.’ ”

That’s an awful lot of hovering for a man who insists he knew what was best for the woman he adores.