The New Haven Register does not enjoy a stellar reputation. In my experience, though, it gets something of a bad rap. It’s thin but reasonably solid. There are several top-notch reporters on staff.
That said, this is a disgrace: an online poll headlined “Who’s the hottest local female television personality?”, complete with photos available for purchase. A database search reveals that it did not appear in the print edition.
The Laurel, a Connecticut media blog, rightly calls it “a new low.” (I should note that I found out about it through the Valley Independent Sentinel’s Twitter feed, and that the Valley site is part of the New Haven Independent, the Register’s main local rival.)
One online commenter wrote, “Try this poll Whos’ Going To Hell and How Hot Will It Be? These women that you chose should be insulted.”
Many of us remember when Howie Carr would engage in such degrading stunts on his radio show. The Huffington Post trolls for traffic with such fare even today. But the Register is a major metropolitan newspaper — the paper of record in Greater New Haven. The journalists there must be mortified. I suspect we have not heard the end of this.