Out, Damned Spot!

Readers usually don't know what they're missing, but every newspaper man knows about the office taboos -words that can't be printed and sights that can't be shown. The Chicago Daily News, a reasonable paper in other respects, used to paint out the nipples of male wrestlers and other shirtless athletes. The Atlanta Journal supplies shirts. Before passing an ad for the movie The Love Makers, in which Claudia Cardinale reposes on the chest of Jean-Paul Belmondo, the Journal daubed a tunic on Belmondo. In Southern California, where seminudity is a way of life, the Los Angeles Times does its best to spare readers what they can see on any beach.

The Scandinavian Airlines System recently submitted to the Times a full-page ad that had already appeared in other newspapers and magazines. It showed an inviting, bikini-clad blonde above the caption: "What to Show Your Wife in Scandinavia." But it clearly was not what to show your wife in Los Angeles. Before running the ad, the Times censor scrupulously amended the blonde's anatomy to conform to regulations. He removed her navel.

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