The ugly truth: Changing the face of news

Coverage of the recent appearance on Oprah Winfrey by Charla Nash, the woman who suffered massive facial disfigurement after being attacked by a friend's 200-pound pet chimpanzee, was played mostly straight by the media.

But credit that to the good will and reputation for decency Winfrey has built up over the years, not to the subject matter. No matter how dressed up in Oprah's outward shows of compassion or the "message" Nash delivered (which was apparently that proximity to extraordinarily powerful exotic animals can be hazardous), the segment felt distinct from a carnival freak show only by its Winfrey-esque slickness. All it left me with was a feeling of how far we haven't come from the days when Londoners would pay a few pence for a peek at Joseph "The Elephant Man" Merrick.

(Note: Nash was also interviewed by Meredith Viera of NBC's "Today," but the Oprah interview received more attention.)

Perhaps it is because of their rarity, or because of how visceral people's reactions are to seeing, the disfigured are one of the last true closeted minority groups. Except in sensational circumstances like Nash's Oprah interview, they are mostly invisible. Why? Because society doesn't want to see them - and television, with its archaic standards of outward physical perfection, may be the single greatest contributor to the problem. Let's be honest, when was the last time you saw a news reader with a port wine scar, or any facial scar for that matter?

Which is what makes Britain's Channel 5 TV's experiment this week so interesting.

Instead of interviewing or simply doing a story on someone with a facial disfigurement, Channel Five sent a leading UK activist for the disfigured, James Partridge, for intensive broadcast news presenter training and is having him deliver their lunchtime news bulletin every day this week. What's more, Partridge is substituting for almost impossibly good-looking Five News presenter Natasha Kaplinsky, (whose other major claim to fame is formerly co-hosting a youth chat show with Sacha "Borat" Baron Cohen).

Along with its explanation of the experiment, Channel Five is running the results of a poll it conducted on facial disfigurement and the news. When given a list of the most common facial disfigurements a television presenter could have, 64 percent of those polled said they would not change the channel.

That's a solid majority, but it also shows that Britons - and certainly also us Americans - have a way to go.

What do you think?

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