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The Delightful Voyeurism of Watching News Anchors Report From Their Homes


The charms of self-quarantine are limited, and all of them are odd. Find out how much of your own body hair you can remove using your rapidly lengthening fingernails! Develop a crush on the one bird you keep seeing from your window!

Please, help yourself to one more accidental delight of this deeply unpleasant time: watching straight-faced news anchors broadcast from their homes, in front of their decorative rock collections, their wedding photos, and their psychedelic posters.

While some news anchors continue to beam into homes nationwide from formal studios, even as the number of deaths from COVID-19 double every three days, more—including the wonderful anchors on PBS News Hour—are broadcasting from home, standing in front of blank walls that producers (often also working from home) manipulate to look like “real” studios. You may not have been able to tell since he was standing in front of a stock photo of lower Manhattan, but MSNBC’s Ali Velshi reported live this week from his home for the first time in his three-decade career.

This feeble attempt at business-as-usual, though well-intentioned, must go. To hell with the over-pixelated images of twinkling skyscrapers and sepia-toned close-ups of cityscapes that networks think we want to see behind newscasters’ heads. Give us instead, Rachel Maddow’s breakfast nook. Let us see Jake Tapper’s man cave. Give us someone’s house cat crawling unexpectedly across a graphic comparing the S&P to the NASDAQ. Show us Ari Melber trying to conceal his irritation as someone in his house keeps flushing the toilet.

A true queen protects her health and works in front of a massive wine cooler

When news anchors do broadcast from home—with no faux background or support team—it’s enchanting. As newscasters are, more than ever, the messengers of terrible tidings, feast your eyes on CNBC’s Bob Pisani’s lovingly framed Grateful Dead poster. Play I-Spy on Steve Liesman’s desk, covered in tangled wires and a TV remote. Luxuriate in Joy Reid’s tasteful bookshelf plants. Sure, Pisani, a financial reporter, is in the process of breaking down a graph enigmatically labeled “PIMCO SHORT MAT STRAT,” but I, a home-bound viewer, am focused on his free-standing shelving unit of carved Buddha figurines.

Robin Roberts, who has survived cancer and lives with a rare blood disorder, cited her underlying health conditions as one of the reasons she will be shooting *Good Morning America* from home. Not only is she practicing excellent social distancing behavior and offering a masterclass in speaking up for her needs, she is also modeling matching your top to your flower arrangement and broadcasting in front of what appears to be a wine storage cabinet. Roberts showed off a beautiful dog and a giant geode (which a surprising number of anchors seem to have—what’s up with the rocks, journalists?). Meanwhile, Today anchor Savannah Guthrie, taking precautions because of a cold, broadcast barefoot from her basement, with help from her husband. Her fellow co-host Craig Melvin appeared on air from what looked like a hallway covered in palm-tree patterned wallpaper, featuring a Pinterest-y framed sign that reads, “Never Stop.”





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Victoria's Secret Exec Accused of Sexually Harassing Employees and Models: Report


A new New York Times report has exposed the alleged “culture of misogyny inside Victoria’s Secret.” The report, which was published on February 1, features interviews with over 30 current and former executives, employees, and models who claim the brand has a history of misogyny, bullying, and sexual harassment.

Most allegations revolved around Ed Razek, former president and chief marketing officer, who stepped down from his position in August 2019 after making controversial comments about hiring transgender or curvy models for the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show.

In one of the alleged incidents, Razek made lewd comments about Bella Hadid before the 2018 Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show as she was getting measured for underwear. According to newspaper, he was sitting on a couch in the same room and allegedly said “forget the panties” before commenting that she should walk “down the runway with those perfect” breasts.

The allegations come just months after the 23-year-old supermodel admitted that she had never felt comfortable on the runway until walking in Rihanna’s Savage x Fenty show.

Razek allegedly made lewd comments about Bella Hadid during a fitting for the 2018 Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show. 

Taylor Hill / Getty Images

“That was the first time on a runway that I felt really sexy. Because when I first did Fenty, I was doing other lingerie shows and I never felt powerful on a runway, like, in my underwear,” Hadid said.

Model Andi Muise, who had participated in the VS fashion show for two consecutive years, said she repeatedly turned down Razek’s advances in 2007 and then was not cast in the next year’s show.

The Times also alleges Razek touched another model’s privates over her underwear, among several other allegations, including harassing women with intimate emails, asking them to sit on his lap, and trying to kiss them.

Ed Razek

Ed Razek

Dia Dipasupil/Getty Images for Victoria’s Secret

The report further alleges that L Brands founder and owner Leslie Wexner was aware of Razek’s behavior, but that he was also known to allegedly abuse his power and use demeaning language toward women.

“What was most alarming to me, as someone who was always raised as an independent woman, was just how ingrained this behavior was,” a former public relations employee said to the Times. “This abuse was just laughed off and accepted as normal. It was almost like brainwashing. And anyone who tried to do anything about it wasn’t just ignored. They were punished.”

Razek has since denied the allegations to the Times, insisting they are “categorically untrue, misconstrued or taken out of context,” adding that he’s been “fortunate to work with countless, world-class models and gifted professionals and take great pride in the mutual respect we have for each other.”

Victoria’s Secret has not addressed the accusations.



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Eight People a Day on Average Are Sexually Assaulted in an Uber, According to New Uber Report


It’s the app that made getting into a stranger’s car seem normal. Billed as a safer alternative—for women in particular—to one-man taxis, Uber is now responsible for nearly four million trips a day. But after almost 21 months of data collection, the platform has released an unprecedented safety report, a record of thousands of sexual assaults and over 100 Uber-related deaths. The first of its kind across not just ride-share apps but most big businesses, the 78-page document is a damning account of violence

The review, which Glamour previewed, tabulates and categorizes all reported incidents from 2017 and 2018 and focuses on the most critical: fatalities and sexual assaults. In that period and after around 2.3 billion rides, 107 people died in Uber-related motor vehicle fatalities, 19 people died in Uber-related fatal assaults, and nearly 6,000 people experienced sexual assault—that’s on average eight reports per day and eight more than most of us think about when we open the app to request a ride.

The sexual assault claims run the gamut. For the report, Uber developed five categories of sexual assault, defined in consultation with the National Sexual Violence Resource Center (NSVRC) and the Urban Institute. The names sound clinical—non-consensual kissing of a non-sexual body part, attempted non-consensual sexual penetration, non-consensual touching of a sexual body part, non-consensual kissing of a sexual body part, and non-consensual sexual penetration. But advocates stress that consistent taxonomies for assault are essential; the fact that we don’t have them is just one of countless reasons it’s been so hard to put reforms in place. And no matter how dispassionate the tone, the numbers are a gut punch: 464 reports in 2017 and 2018 claim the most serious offense—non-consensual sexual penetration (of which most of those victims were riders; 92% overall). But the data also points to a less recognized problem—assaults on vulnerable drivers. Across all five sexual assault categories, the percentages of drivers and riders who report even out. Drivers, who have few defenses against intoxicated users, report assaults at more or less the same rate as riders.

In an introduction to the data, Uber stresses that 99.9% of Uber trips—of which there are now close to 4 million per day—“end without anything going wrong or anyone contacting us” and that the “vast majority” of the .1% of reports that Uber does receive are not safety-related at all. (True, but context that Uber repeats more than once in a document that also details hundreds of cases of serious assault. The effect is somewhat disquieting.)



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New Report Says USA Gymnastics Did Not Talk to Simone Biles About the Larry Nassar Investigation for Years


It’s been almost two years since Larry Nassar was sentenced to 40 to 125 years in prison by a Eaton County, Michigan court on criminal sexual conduct charges, but we are still learning more details about how he was able to continue as the team doctor for USA Gymnastics for so long. (Nassar also received a 40- to 175-year sentence in Ingham County, Michigan, as well as a 60-year sentence in federal court on child pornography charges.)

A new report from the Wall Street Journal says that even though USA Gymnastics was conducting an investigation into Nassar—they didn’t tell Simone Biles until after the Rio Olympics in 2016. Per the WSJ, Biles was one of three gymnasts (along with Aly Raisman and Maggie Nichols) who had expressed discomfort about Nassar in 2015, but they say she was not interviewed by the body’s own investigator before the Nassar story went public in 2016.

Rhonda Faehn, the former director of the women’s program for USA Gymnastics, said in testimony before Congress that she was notified in June 2015 that Biles, Maggie Nichols and Aly Raisman had “concerns” about the doctor’s treatment methods. She claims that she passed that information to Steve Penny, then-President of USA Gymnastics, which he disputes. Though, per USA Today, he does admit to knowing Biles was someone they “might want to talk to about Nassar.” But that never happened and Biles then met with the FBI on the matter in the fall of 2016.

In January 2018, Biles publicly announced that she had been abused by Nassar. “I, too, am one of the many survivors that was sexually abused by Larry Nassar,” she said at the time. “There are many reasons that I have been reluctant to share my story, but I know now that it is not my fault.”

The most decorated gymnast of all-time declined to be interviewed for the WSJ story, but her parents gave the paper this statement: “We continue to struggle with how and why this happened, and every time we hear something new like this, it feels like the harshest of betrayals and it is just too painful for our family to talk about openly.”

Biles is not staying silent, however, tweeting about the story herself. “Can’t tell you how hard this is to read and process. The pain is real and doesn’t just go away…especially when new facts are still coming out,” she wrote. “What’s it going to take for a complete and independent investigation of both USOPC and USAG???” She followed it up with, “Numb is becoming a normal feeling.”

Biles also recently spoke out against a distasteful banner hanging at a University of Michigan fraternity house ahead of a football game with rival Michigan State University, where Nassar worked. “You can’t touch us @LarryNassar,” it read. Biles responded, “unbelievable….. this is the type of stuff that makes me sick to my stomach. I hope the school is taking the proper measurements in investigating this…”

The school announced it “will be pursuing corrective action with those responsible for hanging the banners and those who failed to intervene.”



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1 in 16 Women Report Their First Experience With Sexual Intercourse Was Rape, Per New Study


A new study of government data has revealed a heartbreaking and maddening statistic about women and sexual assault. Per PBS, new research published in the Journal of the American Medical Association this week notes that for one in 16 women, their first experience with sexual intercourse was forced with rape or coercion.

That number is shocking, but how did the researchers arrive at it? According to PBS, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention questioned a sample of 13,310 women, ages 18 to 44 about marriage, divorce, family life, reproductive health, and more between 2011 and 2017. (It should be noted that men were not asked about their first time and women with no history of vaginal intercourse and girls 17 or younger were not included in this sample.)

Still, a horrific 6.5 percent of the women questioned said their first time having sex was non-consensual. If that number is representative, it would mean about 3.3 million women in America are in a similar position. The average age of the women at the time of these assaults was about 15.6, with seven percent of the women telling researchers they were younger than 10 at the time of the assault, 29 percent saying they were between the ages of 11 and 14, and 39 percent saying the event happened between the ages of 15 and 17.

“Quite honestly, that’s the tip of the iceberg,” Laura Hawks, the co-author on the report and a research fellow at Harvard Medical School, said, noting that if the sample had included girls or women older than 45 the number might be even higher.

As women know all too well, the effects of sexual assault are real and can last a lifetime. Thirty percent of women whose first experience of sex was rape or assault reported an unwanted pregnancy later on, compared to 18 percent of women who said they made a choice to have sex for the first time. Women forced into sex also were slightly more likely to have had abortion and problems ovulating or menstruating.

One of the reasons for the study, according to Hawks, is to inform physicians about caring for patients who may have experienced a trauma. “Any physical exam can be traumatizing for someone who has encountered physical or sexual violence in the past,” she said. Patients should be able to grant permission before being asked tough questions and physicians should be sensitive in performing genital exams.

While these numbers are tough to read, studies like this one will hopefully prove vital in helping society recognize how pervasive violence against women truly is and inspire more medical professionals and people in general to believe their stories.



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Redskins Cheerleaders Say They Were Required to Pose Topless In Costa Rica: Report


On Wednesday, The New York Times released a detailed and scathing report alleging the Washington Redskins sent its cheerleading squad to Costa Rica, only to then confiscate their passports and put their safety at risk during a 2013 photoshoot.

According to five Redskins cheerleaders who spoke to the Times on the condition of anonymity, the team sent the squad to Costa Rica for its yearly calendar shoot. There, the women explained that a photoshoot took place at the adults-only Occidental Grand Papagayo resort on Culebra Bay where some of the women were allegedly required to be topless, while others wore nothing but body paint. While many assumed the shoot would be private, they apparently learned upon arrival that several high-level male sponsors were invited to watch.

“At one of my friend’s shoots, we were basically standing around her like a human barricade because she was basically naked, so we could keep the guys from seeing her,” one of the cheerleaders told the Times. “I was getting so angry that the guys on the trip were skeezing around in the background.”

Following the shoot, the women said that nine of their cheerleading teammates were told they had a “special assignment,” which was to escort those sponsors to an area nightclub.

“They weren’t putting a gun to our heads,” one of the cheerleaders told the Times, “but it was mandatory for us to go. We weren’t asked, we were told. Other girls were devastated because we knew exactly what she was doing.”

While the night did not involve sex, the women claimed it was tantamount to “pimping us out.”

“It’s just not right to send cheerleaders out with strange men when some of the girls clearly don’t want to go,” one cheerleader who attended the trip told the Times. “But unfortunately, I feel like it won’t change until something terrible happens, like a girl is assaulted in some way, or raped. I think teams will start paying attention to this only when it’s too late.”

Stephanie Jojokian, the director and choreographer for the Redskins’ cheerleaders, denied the claims made by the women in the report. According to the Times, Jojokian choked up when asked about the allegations and said, “It breaks my heart because I’m a mom and I’ve done this for a long time. Where is this coming from? I would never put a woman in a situation like that. I actually mentor these women to be strong and to speak up, and it kills me to hear that.”

In an additional statement provided to the Times, a spokesperson for The Redskins said, “The Redskins’ cheerleader program is one of the NFL’s premier teams in participation, professionalism, and community service. Each Redskin cheerleader is contractually protected to ensure a safe and constructive environment. The work our cheerleaders do in our community, visiting our troops abroad, and supporting our team on the field is something the Redskins organization and our fans take great pride in.”

Though the Redskins deny the allegations, several of the women told the Times that the trip was so damaging they chose not to return to the squad the next season.

“You kept telling yourself that it was going to get better,” one woman said. “But it never got better. Finally, I had to admit to myself, this is not what I thought it would be.”

The Redskins isn’t the only team facing serious allegations for its alleged treatment of cheerleaders. In early April, Kristan Ware, who spent three seasons as a Miami Dolphins cheerleader, filed a complaint against both the league and the team claiming she was discriminated against based on her religion and gender. According to Ware’s complaint, she was specifically told by two team coaches in an annual work review not to discuss her virginity.

“You have taken something that was once upon a time pure and beautiful and you’ve made it dirty,” Ware claims Dolphins cheerleading director Dorie Grogan said.

Additionally, in April, Bailey Davis, a former New Orleans Saints cheerleader, filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission against both the NFL and the Saints, claiming she was unfairly fired over “blatantly discriminatory” social media and fraternization policies that she says are different for cheerleaders than they are for the male players.

“The players have the freedom to post whatever they want to on social media,” Davis explained to NPR after she was fired for posting an image of herself in lingerie on her personal Instagram account. “They can promote themselves, but we can’t post anything on our social media about being a Saintsation. We can’t have it in our profile picture, we can’t use our last name for media, we can’t promote ourselves, but the players don’t have the same restrictions.”

Both cases are still pending, though both women have offered to settle with the NFL for $1 each if NFL commissioner Roger Goodell and league lawyers would agree to a meeting. “This was never about money for me,” Davis told ABC News. “This is about having respect for our sport and standing up for our sport and standing up for women.”

The NFL provided this official statement to The New York Times: “Everyone who works in the NF., including cheerleaders, has the right to work in a positive and respectful environment that is free from any and all forms of harassment and discrimination and fully complies with state and federal laws. Our office will work with our clubs in sharing best practices and employment-related processes that will support club cheerleading squads within an appropriate and supportive workplace.”

Related Content:
NFL Cheerleaders in California Will Finally Receive Employment Benefits
I’ve Tried Out for the Patriots Cheerleading Squad 4 Times and Still Haven’t Made It



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