Double standards are nothing new on TV, but Monkey can’t help but sympathise with those Twitter users expressing their incredulity at the puritan behaviour of Los Angeles TV station KLTA, which on Sunday decided that the dress worn on air by weather reporter Liberté Chan was so revealing it needed covering up, in the middle of a report, with a demure grey cardigan.
The cardigan was proffered by the disembodied hand of news anchor Chris Burrous, supposedly in response to emails from outraged and presumably easily shocked viewers.
Chan’s cool on-air response and later apology and promise not to wear the dress again were greeted with praise, but the behaviour of the station itself did not go down well with many online, who made perfectly reasonable comments such as “Is this a joke?”, “Grow up and stop acting like Isis”, and, perhaps most pertinently, “Men are never asked this question. Wear whatever you want!”
Wow! Male @KTLA anchor humiliates meteorologist, forces her to cover her dress: "We’re getting a lot of emails" pic.twitter.com/xU7hbCiwer
— Pop Crave (@PopCrave) May 15, 2016
Burrous later said the whole thing was a joke, and Chan said she had not been ordered by station bosses to cover up, but Monkey left wondering whether there would have been much to laugh at if the roles had been reversed.
• This article was amended on 18 May 2016 to correct the name of the KTLA station.
