AP Finds Stripper Video Too Hot To Handle

By: Joe Strupp An amateur video posted on a Pennsylvania newspaper's Web site, showing strippers performing lap dances at a golf course, was apparently too adult for the Associated Press, which chose not to distribute the images.

The Morning Call of Allentown, Pa. reported that AP officials decided the minute-long clip of the X-rated behavior at a Stroud Township, Pa. golf course was too hot to handle. The video had been placed on the Web site of the Pocono Record in Stroudsburg, Pa.

''We do exercise judgment on that kind of material,'' Kevin Roach, executive producer for online video at AP, told The Morning Call.

Roach also told the paper that the clip did not add to the print story of "scantily clad women doing lap dances that were visible from a public road during a private outing at Cherry Valley Golf Course on Monday."

''I took a look at it, and I thought in the scheme of things, it's not a new story, strippers on a golf course,'' he told the paper. ''I didn't see it as offering a lot toward the story other than blurry images of a girl in a bikini and a guy sitting in a chair with golfers playing through. Our concerns were primarily for our customers. I have to be the gatekeeper for them.''

Bill Watson, executive director of the Pocono Record , said the video was newsworthy and included no visible nudity. He said the Web site had warned viewers of the video's lewd content.

''It was a chance to show people instead of tell people,'' he told the paper. ''We found some version that wasn't as bad as other parts.'' Watson said he had not received any complaints from viewers, and as of 6 p.m. Tuesday, the Web story had received 140,000 hits, the most in the paper's history.