In profiling an emerging artist's work, should nude paintings stay or go?
Here's the situation:
A local station decided to produce a program about budding artists in the community. One of the featured artists, Artis Kanves, specializes in depicting human expression.
One afternoon, the producers visited Kanves’ studio to film her at work. At the time, Kanves was painting a nude model.
The rough cut of the program included incidental, but clearly discernable, shots of full-frontal nudity – both of the model and the painting. The producers objected strenuously to the station general manager’s request that they edit or remove these particular shots, crying "censorship!"
The producers argued that the images were brief (no more than two or three seconds), tasteful, and important to illustrating the artist and her subject. While sympathetic, the general manager argued that including the nudity would violate the PBS Editorial Standards, which her station had recently adopted. The general manager also was concerned about the legality of broadcasting the images and was waiting to hear back from the station’s attorney.