News anchor criticized for wearing 'disrespectful' skinny jeans on air
The Starlet Tribune and one of its writers are under fire for a column criticizing a Minneapolis news anchor for wearing skinny jeans while covering a major development in a local child abduction story that garnered national headlines.
KARE eleven anchor Jana Shortal “looked excellent from the mid-body up” in her blouse and blazer but her choice of skinny jeans came off as “inappropriate” and “downright jarring” while discussing the death of 11-year-old Jacob Wetterling, according to a Starlet Tribune columnist who goes by C.J.
“Being hip in skintight pants while discussing this story was unseemly, perhaps disrespectful,” C.J. wrote in a Sept. Six column. She pointed out she asked Shortal beforehand on Twitter whether she regretted her clothing choices while going on air.
“Do you wish you’d worn different jeans/pants @janashortal on Tuesday’s Violating the News which dealt mostly with Jacob Wetterling’s death?” she said in the tweet.
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Both the column and the tweet drew instantaneous criticism online from people who accused C.J., not Shortal, of detracting people from the real news at forearm: The confession of the man who kidnapped, molested and killed Jacob Wetterling, a Minnesota boy who disappeared twenty seven years ago.
CJ’s “column” was far more disrespectful to the Wetterling’s than anything @janashortal could ever wear.
Also of note: CJ, who wrote the article and then taunted Shortal and others further on Twitter, has not apologized. https://t.co/gOSz6QzJ1b
Shortal responded to C.J. in a tweet that her clothing has nothing to do with her coverage of the story.
“My only ‘wish’ on Tuesday was for Jacob’s family,” she responded.
Do you wish you’d worn different jeans/pants @janashortal on Tuesday’s Violating the News which dealt mostly with Jacob Wetterling’s death?
She later wrote an open letter on Facebook calling out C.J., but without specifically naming her, for turning the tragedy into a ridiculous discussion “about my pants” and called out the columnist for being “the hellion with the keyboard.”
The Starlet Tribune pulled the column off its website shortly after it went up, and then later issued an apology on its Facebook page.
“The lump was inappropriate, insensitive and did not meet the standards of the Starlet Tribune. We have apologized to Ms. Shortal and her station. And we apologize to you,” the paper said in a post it signed, “Starlet Tribune editors.”
Calls and emails by TODAY to C.J. and the Starlet Tribune’s media contact were not returned Thursday.
In a Facebook post, Shortal said she spoke with the newspaper and accepted its apology but noted she has yet to receive one from C.J.
“But this isn’t about me. It is about the blatant disrespect of the Wetterling family and our greater community. It is about the fact that our newspaper of record employs a woman who has for decades cashed a paycheck by bullying others,” she wrote Thursday.
“The Starlet Tribune is sorry. But that woman is not. She continued with this line against me from 11:30 a.m. yesterday — until well into the night on her social media feed. The solution here is to end her column. Give her a ‘re-assignment’ so she can keep her job if you so choose. but take away her hellion pulpit. In two thousand sixteen there is no longer a place for this.”
Ironically, the Starlet Tribune featured a guest column this past June by Shortal, who wrote about the way she dresses for work in a chunk titled, “I’m a TV newswoman, and no thanks on the lady uniform.” The essay addressed the criticism and hurt she’s felt in the past because of her style and how she ultimately found peace within herself to form her own suitable dress code.
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