Show and Tell

Video Golfo, a TV station in Sicily, Italy, says it got tired of news stories being “sensationalized” in order to gain viewers. So it decided instead to “to give viewers what they really want” and hired three women to strip on camera and kiss the newsreaders during Friday prime-time broadcasts. Ratings are up, but the scheme is raising the ire of two conservative Italian institutions — the Catholic church and the Mafia. A former Mafia boss explained, “To the Mafia, the woman is sacred. Her place is [in] the home, ironing her husband’s clothes, and certainly not in the television studio removing her own.” Show producer Sergio Petta says the nudity is no big deal. “We don’t do anything vulgar,” he says, and besides, he says, “The girls aren’t beautiful.” (London Telegraph) ...Of course not: he’s saving the beautiful ones for the pay-per-view version.