Cara Newlon, like many of her fellow Brown University students, was not pleased to hear Fox News' Jesse Watters was back on their campus reporting on "Nudity in the Upspace."
So Newlon headed out to find Watters, along with someone to record the interaction, so she could ask him some questions for her own story on the BlogDailyHerald.
One of the BlogDailyHerald staffers told The Huffington Post in an email that Watters, a correspondent for "The O'Reilly Factor," only agreed to let them record his answers to their questions if he could let his own cameras roll during the conversation.
Newlon later wrote about it on the BlogDailyHerald:
Full disclosure: I’m not an expert on Nudity in the Upspace or nude events. I’ve never been to SexPowerGod, and I’m probably going to pass on Nudity in the Upspace this year. But that doesn’t mean I don’t agree with its mission statement, and it certainly doesn’t mean that I won’t defend my home, my school, when it comes under attack for the third time by Bill O’Reilly and his team of “Fair and Balanced” reporters.
"Nudity in the Upspace" is a week-long series of student organized events held this week at Brown to discuss issues about body image. Some students assume Watters is going to focus on the novelty of events like nude yoga and nude body painting.
"I feel like I need to be enlightened about how to desexualize nudity," Watters said. "Would nude body painting be an enlightening experience for me personally?" He seemed to answer his own question by noting that he probably wouldn't be invited.
"Yeah, after the 'Sex Power God' coverage I think we're a little weary of you to be honest," Newlon told him.
Watters brought a camera into the "Sex Power God" party in 2005, annual event held on campus that allowed nudity. Students complained that his coverage was inaccurate and exploitive. "Nudity in the Upspace" organizers confirmed to HuffPost that Watters would not be allowed in their events this year, but neither would any journalist.
The conversation between Newlon and Watters eventually turned to the Naked Donut Run, an annual tradition at Brown separate from "Nudity in the Upspace."
"Do you think Bill O'Reilly would accept a doughnut from a nude person?" Newlon asked.
"Well he does have a very strong appetite," Watters responded.
Watters said yes, he would probably take a doughnut from a nude person.
But Newlon wanted to make the point that the commenters on news articles online are proving why "Nudity in the Upspace" is a necessary event, writing later in her blog post:
The creators of Nudity in the Upspace have found themselves targets for negative anonymous comments on news articles. “It’s never the girls you want to see naked,” one anonymous commentator lamented. They’ve been called fat, ugly, and slutty. But comments like this underscore why a discussion like Nudity in the Upspace becomes necessary. Why is being naked somehow “perverted” or “slutty?” And since when did it become respectable to shame people’s bodies?
Watters also promised to do a report on the Princeton University "Nude Olympics."
"If there's a naked event on a college campus," Watters said, "I want to investigate it."
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